Suffern, NY Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

"They said the court may appoint a lawyer"... who is "they"?  Your father's widow? Has she hired her own lawyer?  A better question to ask rather than "what is the job of this extra lawyer" is, do you understand what your job is as executor?  It doesn't seem that you do because if you did, you wouldn't be asking whether the court will ask you to look at bank statements. It's your job to open an estate bank account, be in charge of that account (which includes looking at bank statements), marshall the assets of the estate (which include the car accident settlement), and file an accounting with the court, which should hopefully be consented to by all distributees, and which shows that the assets will be distributed as per your father's will. You need to immediately hire a lawyer who will see that the estate is settled properly. If you don't, and you're not following the proper procedures to settle the estate, and the widow is too disabled to take on the role of executor, if she's hired an attorney, her attorney might petition the court to have you removed as executor and appoint an outside lawyer to oversee settlement of the estate. Don't let that happen, because that attorney's legal fees will be paid from the assets of the estate, and that will diminish the assets of the estate, and you will have no control over those fees.

In California, a will must be probated unless the probatable estate is small enough, under $150,000, to be distributed pursuant to a declaration procedure. The "probatable estate" does not include property held in joint tenancy or which passes to a designated beneficiary (e.g., life insurance) or pursuant to a "pay on death" arrangement with a financial institution. Probate is usually necessary when there is real property standing only in the name of the decedent. If probated, there is a creditor claim procedure which determines which, if any, creditors get paid and how much. Yes, it is common practice to have an attorney represent the personal representative and the estate in a probate case.