Risk and Negligence in Wills, Estates, and Trusts provides essential guidance for all will draftsmen. It offers in-depth analysis of negligence and wills, together with commentary on safe practice and the avoidance of risk. Together the areas covered provide a framework for the safe practice that is now essential in this much disputed area of work. This updated edition examines the new developments in will preparation and what is needed for safe practice as well as the important cases since the last edition. This work contains indispensable practical guidance, tailored to meet the demands of all those involved in wills, trusts, and estates and disputes relating to them. Practical advice in establishing best practice to avoid disputes is given and the appendices include practical forms and checklists to assist this. In addition there is analysis of the allied subjects of estate and trust administration and commonly encountered problem areas. A section also concentrates on duties in relation to taxation aspects of this work. Negligence and private client work is a fast developing area of modern law. The recent financial crisis has helped to focus attention closely on what risk is and how it should be managed. This has not merely been in the financial sector but in all areas of business. The legal profession has seen some major financial failures and an operating climate that is increasingly difficult. The rise in PI claims, the insurers' restrictions on cover, and the increased cost of cover have led to an increased focus on professional ability and risk management. Therefore, knowledge of the risks, what constitutes safe practice, and how to manage risk, are essential for anyone practising in this area.

Ancient and medieval labyrinths embody paradox, according to Penelope Reed Doob. Their structure allows a double perspective—the baffling, fragmented prospect confronting the maze-treader within, and the comprehensive vision available to those without. Mazes simultaneously assert order and chaos, artistry and confusion, articulated clarity and bewildering complexity, perfected pattern and hesitant process. In this handsomely illustrated book, Doob reconstructs from a variety of literary and visual sources the idea of the labyrinth from the classical period through the Middle Ages. Doob first examines several complementary traditions of the maze topos, showing how ancient historical and geographical writings generate metaphors in which the labyrinth signifies admirable complexity, while poetic texts tend to suggest that the labyrinth is a sign of moral duplicity. She then describes two common models of the labyrinth and explores their formal implications: the unicursal model, with no false turnings, found almost universally in the visual arts; and the multicursal model, with blind alleys and dead ends, characteristic of literary texts. This paradigmatic clash between the labyrinths of art and of literature becomes a key to the metaphorical potential of the maze, as Doob's examination of a vast array of materials from the classical period through the Middle Ages suggests. She concludes with linked readings of four "labyrinths of words": Virgil's Aeneid, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, Dante's Divine Comedy, and Chaucer's House of Fame, each of which plays with and transforms received ideas of the labyrinth as well as reflecting and responding to aspects of the texts that influenced it. Doob not only provides fresh theoretical and historical perspectives on the labyrinth tradition, but also portrays a complex medieval aesthetic that helps us to approach structurally elaborate early works. Readers in such fields as Classical literature, Medieval Studies, Renaissance Studies, comparative literature, literary theory, art history, and intellectual history will welcome this wide-ranging and illuminating book.