Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the Virginia T&E solo who knows Title 64.2 (Virginia’s own decedents-estates code) cold but still loses an afternoon a week hunting the current homestead number, the Cardinal Care / CCC Plus waiver posture, whether the latest VSB opinion changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Court of Appeals of Virginia decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in Virginia 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 a Virginia 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.
Per the Virginia LIS, HB 133 (electronic execution of estate-planning documents; codifies the Uniform Electronic Wills Act) passed the House 98-Y 0-N on February 3, 2026, was referred to the Senate Committee for Courts of Justice on February 4, and on February 25 the committee failed to report (defeated) it, 6-Y 8-N 1-A. The 2026 General Assembly adjourned sine die March 14. The bill’s status is Failed.
For a Virginia T&E solo, the operative posture is unchanged: wills are still executed the wet-signature way under Va. Code § 64.2-403 — testator signature plus two competent witnesses — and Virginia does not authorize fully electronic or remote-online will execution. Don’t let a client, or an out-of-state e-will vendor, assume an electronically executed will is valid here; a will executed in reliance on this bill would be exposed. Re-file the question for the 2027 session.
Virginia LIS · HB 133 (2026 Reg. Sess.) · lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB133
LEO 1901, Reasonable Fees and the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence, was approved by the Supreme Court of Virginia on November 24, 2025 (effective immediately). Applying Rule 1.5, it holds that time-based (hourly) fees may bill only the actual time spent, but a lawyer is not required to reduce a non-hourly (flat or value-based) fee solely because AI made the work faster — the skill to prompt, verify, and integrate AI output, and the results obtained, remain compensable value. Virginia here expressly departs from ABA Formal Opinion 512 and North Carolina 2024 FEO 1.
If you use AI-assisted drafting, you may keep a reasonable flat or value fee even when AI cut your hours — you need not discount for speed alone — but Rule 1.5(b) requires you to adequately explain the basis of the fee to the client, and that explanation matters most precisely when your time on the matter drops sharply. Hourly billing still must reflect only actual hours worked.
Va. Legal Ethics Opinion 1901, Reasonable Fees and the Use of Generative AI, approved by the Supreme Court of Virginia Nov. 24, 2025 · official opinion: vacourts.gov
Chapter 506 created a brand-new section, Va. Code § 64.2-724.1. Where a presumption of undue influence arises in any action contesting the validity of a trust or trust instrument created under § 64.2-700 et seq., the finder of fact “shall presume that the undue influence was exerted over the decedent” unless, on all the evidence at trial, it finds the decedent did intend the property to pass as the contested instrument directs. That is the same burden-shifting Virginia adopted for will contests in 2022 at § 64.2-454.1 (2022, c. 265), now carried across to trusts. Separately, Chapter 381 rewrote the deadline in § 64.2-313: an election to take a family allowance, exempt property, or homestead allowance must now be made “no later than one year after the later of the (i) time of admission of the decedent’s will to probate or (ii) qualification of an administrator of the decedent’s intestate estate” — replacing the former one-year-from-death trigger. Both were 2026 acts and both are now in force.
The trust-contest change is the one that moves litigation outcomes. Revocable trusts have been the standard way to keep a contested disposition out of the will-contest presumption; as of July 1 that shelter is gone, and a trust amendment made under suspicious circumstances is exposed to the same shifted burden a codicil would face. If you defend trusts, the record you build at signing — independent counsel, capacity documentation, an explanation of the change in the settlor’s own words — is now doing much heavier work. If you contest them, plead the presumption expressly and cite the new section rather than arguing from the will-contest cases by analogy. The allowance deadline is quieter but it is a malpractice trap running the other way: a spouse whose one-year-from-death window looked closed may still be in time if probate or qualification came later, so re-check any file you closed on the old rule. Read both sections in full before relying on them; the presumption still turns on a threshold showing that a presumption “arises,” which this section does not itself define.
Va. Code § 64.2-724.1 (2026, c. 506) · LAW.LIS.VIRGINIA.GOV · § 64.2-724.1 and Va. Code § 64.2-313 (2026, c. 381) · LAW.LIS.VIRGINIA.GOV · § 64.2-313
Decisions that bind a Virginia practitioner — Virginia’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering Virginia, including the U.S. Fourth 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.
A QTIP trust beneficiary sued former trustees for breach of trust years after the trust terminated. The trial court dismissed on the two-year catch-all limitations period (Code § 8.01-248) and laches, reasoning the plaintiff’s common-law claims for damages fell outside the Uniform Trust Code. The Court of Appeals reversed: Code § 64.2-796’s own two-track limitations period (one year after an adequate disclosure, otherwise five years from trust termination, trustee resignation, or the beneficiary’s interest ending) governs any breach-of-trust suit regardless of the remedy sought, and a remainder beneficiary’s pre-termination inaction cannot be laches. The Court also detailed a 2024 statutory addition — Code § 64.2-800(B)-(E) — letting a trustee obtain repose in as few as 60 days on trust termination or resignation, by sending the required notice and accounting.
Two things change at your desk. First, don’t let a client’s demand for damages talk you into the general two-year limitations period — a breach-of-trust claim runs on § 64.2-796’s clock, which can stay open far longer than two years. Second, if you draft or administer Virginia trusts, the 2024 § 64.2-800(B)-(E) notice-and-60-day-silence mechanism is a real tool for a resigning or terminating trustee to lock in repose fast — use it deliberately rather than relying on the default five-year window.
Dorothy Fulks v. John D. Fulks, Record No. 0780-25-2 (Va. Ct. App. May 19, 2026) — published Court of Appeals of Virginia opinion. Vitality-checked (Decisis, 2026-08-22): CLEAN, no negative treatment. · VACOURTS.GOV · official opinion
A husband’s will declared that his wife had deserted and abandoned the marriage years earlier and left her nothing, giving his entire estate to his brother. The wife, still legally married, sought her elective share of the augmented estate. After a bench trial, the circuit court found she had abandoned the marital relationship and forfeited her elective-share interest under Code § 64.2-308.14(E); the Court of Appeals affirmed in a published opinion. The evidence — a years-long separation by mutual agreement and an open, public romantic relationship with another man — supported the abandonment finding.
For Virginia practice, the elective share is not automatic for a still-married surviving spouse: under Code § 64.2-308.14(E), desertion or abandonment of the marriage forfeits it. Spouses who separate informally without divorcing should understand that conduct — long separation plus a new public relationship — can cost the survivor the elective share. When drafting for a client in a fractured-but-undissolved marriage, document the desertion; when advising a surviving spouse, assess abandonment exposure before claiming the share.
Teel v. Teel, 86 Va. App. 227 (Nov. 18, 2025) — published Court of Appeals of Virginia opinion.
This week in Virginia for the T&E solo with Cardinal Care / CCC Plus clients: the developments from the Virginia State Bar, the Trusts and Estates Section, and DMAS Medicaid memos 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.