Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Illinois T&E solo who knows the Probate Act of 1975 (755 ILCS 5) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead number, the Community Care Program / “Persons who are Elderly” waiver (HFS Medical Assistance) posture, whether the latest Illinois bar ethics opinion changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Illinois Appellate Court decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in Illinois lately — the week’s developments and the recent rulings from the bench.
For licensed attorneys. This pack is general legal information and professional commentary for practicing attorneys — it is not legal advice, does not apply to any specific matter, and creates no attorney-client relationship. Verify every authority against the cited primary source before relying on it with a client. Published by Mike Moss, a Utah-admitted attorney, as an AI-enablement information product; it is not an offer of legal services and is not a representation that the author is admitted to practice in your jurisdiction.
Three developments from the last several weeks that I think actually matter to an Illinois T&E solo. Each one has a read that lands on your practice specifically — and each one comes with the citation so you can verify the detail yourself before you use it with a client.
P.A. 104-0481 (HB 4206, approved June 26, 2026; effective January 1, 2027) requires a holder of a non-probate asset naming a 501(c)(3) beneficiary — POD/TOD accounts, life insurance, retained-asset accounts — to notify the charity within 45 business days of the owner’s death, bars burdensome claim requirements, and requires honoring a claim made by sworn affidavit plus IRS documentation; bad-faith noncompliance carries attorney-fee exposure.
Charitable-beneficiary designations are a staple of the plans you draft — from January the payout mechanics are statutory, not the institution’s form-of-choice. Note the Act in your charitable-gift letters, and when you administer an estate with charitable designations, the 45-day clock is now your leverage against slow-paying holders.
P.A. 104-0481 (HB 4206), approved June 26, 2026, eff. Jan. 1, 2027 · ilga.gov
The first statewide judicial AI policy permits responsible use of generative AI by attorneys and judges, imposes no AI-disclosure requirement, and places full accountability on the user for anything submitted. It governs T&E filings the same as any other.
If you use AI to draft a petition or trust instrument in Illinois, you need not disclose the tool — but you own every word, including a hallucinated citation. The no-disclosure posture is a convenience, not a safe harbor: verify authorities before filing, and pair the court policy with the ISBA/ARDC practitioner guidance for the confidentiality and competence pieces.
Illinois Supreme Court Policy on Artificial Intelligence (eff. Jan. 1, 2025) · illinoiscourts.gov · AI policy
In October 2025 the ISBA AI Committee published an FAQ / best-practices set and the ARDC released the “Illinois Attorney’s Guide to Implementing AI.” Together they are the practitioner-facing complement to the Supreme Court’s AI policy.
This is the operational checklist for an Illinois T&E solo: how to vet an AI tool, when client data triggers confidentiality duties, and how to supervise AI-assisted work product. Read it alongside the court policy — the court tells you the accountability rule, the ISBA/ARDC guidance tells you the workflow that keeps you on the right side of it.
ARDC, Illinois Attorney’s Guide to Implementing AI; ISBA AI Committee (Oct. 2025) · isba.org · ARDC AI guide
Decisions that bind an Illinois practitioner — Illinois’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Illinois, including the U.S. Seventh Circuit — read for what actually changes how you draft, advise, and plan. Trusts and estates broadly, not Medicaid alone: wills and capacity, undue influence, fiduciary duty, trust construction, and estate recovery. One read, the holding, and the official cite.
An Illinois-domiciled decedent died while divorcing; his will left his wife nothing. She first obtained letters as administrator on the representation that he died intestate, was removed after the will surfaced and was admitted to probate, and then renounced the will — which under § 2-8(a) of the Probate Act entitles a renouncing spouse to one-third of the “entire estate” where the testator leaves a descendant. The children moved for a declaration that her share excluded proceeds from Arizona real property the decedent had owned before the marriage. The trial court ruled the Arizona property would be probated in Illinois and denied the motion. The Second District reversed. Under In re Estate of Pericles and Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 242, the forced-share interest of a surviving spouse in land is determined by the law the situs court would apply — here Arizona, which provides no forced share. So the Arizona realty falls outside the “entire estate” for § 2-8(a) purposes, and the circuit court was not free to depart from Pericles.
Any Illinois estate with land in another state now has a renunciation math problem worth modeling before anyone elects. The situs rule cuts both ways: out-of-state realty drops out of the Illinois computation, which can shrink a spouse’s share dramatically where the bulk of the wealth is a ranch, a condo, or a rental in a no-forced-share state — and it means the practical planning lever is where the real property sits and how it is titled, not what the Illinois will says. Two cautions on how much weight to put on this. The appellee filed no brief, so the court decided only whether the appellants had shown prima facie reversible error and expressly declined to work through Arizona succession law on its own. And the opinion notes what was not argued below, which leaves room for a better-developed record to test the same question. Still, the published holding is now on the books and binds every Illinois circuit court.
In re Estate of Kevin John Kohnen, Deceased (Deborah Kohnen v. Ethan Kohnen and Jordan Aken), 2026 IL App (2d) 250453, No. 2-25-0453 (Ill. App. Ct. 2d Dist. June 18, 2026) — reversed and remanded. · ILLINOISCOURTS.GOV · official opinion
A surviving spouse renounced her late husband’s will and claimed her statutory share under section 2-8(a) of the Probate Act. The trial court ruled her share included proceeds from Arizona real property the decedent had owned before the marriage. On the children’s appeal — the spouse and administrator filed no appellee brief — the Second District found prima facie reversible error and reversed: following In re Estate of Pericles, real property located in another state is generally not part of a decedent’s ‘entire estate’ for computing a renouncing spouse’s share, so the trial court should not have folded the out-of-state realty into the base.
For Illinois estate practice: when computing a renouncing spouse’s section 2-8(a) share, exclude out-of-state real property from the ‘entire estate’ base — that realty is governed by the law of its situs, not the Illinois administration. Spot situs issues early when a decedent owned land in several states, and remember that an unanswered appeal (no appellee brief) is decided on the prima facie reversible-error standard of Talandis.
In re Estate of Kohnen, 2026 IL App (2d) 250453 (Ill. App. Ct. June 18, 2026) — official Illinois public-domain neutral citation. · ILLINOISCOURTS.GOV · official opinion
This slot holds the next significant trusts-and-estates or estate-recovery decision from Illinois’s appellate courts or the federal courts covering Illinois. The lane reads each opinion before it lands here, and reads-and-discards criminal, family, commercial/LLC-fiduciary, and tax matters as not T&E. When the trailing window has no further ruling, this row says so plainly rather than inventing one.
Nothing further to re-paper from the bench this period; controlling authority unchanged.
Official reporter · court · date — populated when the next verified ruling lands.
This week in Illinois for the T&E solo with Illinois Medicaid clients: the developments from the Illinois State Bar Association (Trusts and Estates Section), the Illinois Supreme Court, and HFS that actually moved your practice this period — each one primary-source verified.
Bar and Medicaid changes land on different schedules and aren’t indexed by practice focus. Every item here was checked against its primary source, with the link, so you can verify before relying on it.