Brave New World: Probate Revisited

Mary-Alice Thompson is a Partner with Cunningham Swan, Lawyers in Kingston. She is designated as a Certified Specialist (Estates & Trusts Law) by the Law Society of Upper Canada and she is a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. Since being called to the Ontario bar in 1994, Mary-Alice has worked for a trust company, with a major Toronto law firm, and in her own practice, before joining Cunningham Swan in 2010. She has taught at the University of Alberta, Queen’s University Law School, and St. Lawrence College, and for the LSUC Bar Admission Course. She was the founding Chair of the Frontenac Law Association Estates & Trusts Group and is former President of the Estate Planning Council of Eastern Ontario. She is also the author, with Brian Gillingham and Robyn Solnik, of a book on will drafting, Drafting Wills in Canada: A Lawyer’s Practical Guide (LexisNexis, 2016). Mary-Alice has lectured and written on a number of topics in estates and trusts law for the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Ontario Bar Association, the Canadian Bar Association, and the Frontenac Law Association, among others. She particularly enjoys the strange and wonderful quirks of estates law!