While promoting Law Week 2011, the NSW Law Society commented in a recent media release that there could be a rise in family disputes over deceased estates and superannuation due to high divorce rates, high remarriage rates and our aging population. Further, it pointed out the distress to those left behind that can be caused when people die without a will or with a badly drafted will.

This is the context into which Thomson Reuters provides two important resources for succession law practitioners, both of which are available in hard copy and online: Australian Succession and Trusts Law Reports (ASTLR) and Australian Succession Law (ASL).

The ASL commentary on family provision, written by Leonie Englefield, has been significantly reviewed and revised by the author over the last two updates, ensuring that it has the most appropriate structure, accuracy and ongoing currency for subscribers. One of the practical tools that this material offers is specific treatment of superannuation death benefits, disputes over which are increasingly common and which may require practitioners to work with principles and practice of tribunals with which they are not very familiar.

Subscribers to ASL may be interested to know that a snapshot of the family provision commentary has been extracted from the service and is available later this month as a convenient, standalone text (stating law as at 28 January 2011): Australian Family Provision Law. ASL subscribers will of course continue to benefit from the future updating of this material in the service.

In other ASL news, Madeleine Harland, author of the administration and probate commentary in the service, was recently named South Australia's Young Lawyer of the Year for 2011, for which we extend her warm congratulations!

The next ASL update publishes in June and includes both new and updated commentary on a number of topics, details of which will be provided in a post here closer to the date of its release.