Most people who call this office already have a problem in front of them. It might be a will they believe is wrong, an executor who has stopped returning calls, or a hearing date in a Travis County probate court that’s coming whether they’re ready or not. Here’s what happens when you reach out, and when you’d be better off calling a different kind of firm.
The first conversation is free and usually short. It starts with intake, before an attorney gets on the line. Our intake staff takes down the facts, the names, the dates and anything already filed, then routes the matter to the attorney who handles that kind of dispute. Intake can’t give you legal advice; its job is to get the information the attorney needs.
That first call is a screen for both of us. We’re figuring out whether this is a contested matter we can take and whether anyone on the other side creates a conflict for us. You’re figuring out whether your situation calls for a litigation firm. Nobody signs anything on that call, and you shouldn’t expect a strategy or a prediction from it either.
If you know of a deadline, tell us in the first minute. Some probate deadlines close for good, and once they pass the court can’t reopen them.
Texas Estates Code Section 256.204 generally gives an interested person two years after a will is admitted to probate to contest it. A claim of forgery or other fraud can be brought within two years after it’s discovered, and an incapacitated person has until two years after the incapacity is removed.
Timing matters in this county for a specific reason. The Travis County probate courts don’t have a drop-in docket, so every hearing, including uncontested ones, has to be specifically set. The court also doesn’t mail out notice of a setting. The party who obtained the setting is responsible for telling everyone else, so if you’ve been waiting for a letter from the courthouse to learn your hearing date, you won’t get one.
Travis County Probate Courts Local Rule 3.1(b): no probate court docket is a drop-in docket, and all hearings are specifically set. Local Rule 3.3: the court does not send notices of settings, and the party that obtained the setting must give notice of the date and time to all other parties.
We take contested and complex probate work. That means will contests, removal of an executor or administrator, breach of fiduciary duty claims, contested heirship proceedings, dependent administrations, disputes over inherited real property, contested guardianships and guardian removal, and trust litigation.
We don’t handle uncontested filings. If you need a muniment of title, a small estate affidavit, an affidavit of heirship, a simple will or estate planning, we’re the wrong firm, and you shouldn’t spend a week finding that out. Tell intake what you’re looking for and you’ll get a plain answer in the first few minutes, along with a pointer to the kind of practice that does that work every day. It won’t cost you anything.
Two of those terms sound alike and mean very different things. A contested heirship proceeding, where the family actually disagrees about who the heirs are, is our work. An uncontested affidavit of heirship, signed and filed because everyone already agrees, is not.
KREIG Austin, Kreig LLC
7600 Chevy Chase Drive, Chase Park, Suite 300
Austin, TX 78752
(512) 273-7444
By appointment only. Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
Travis County’s two statutory probate courts sit at 200 W. 8th Street downtown. Probate Court No. 1, the Honorable Guy Herman, is on the Second Floor. Probate Court No. 2, the Honorable Nicholas Chu, is on the Fourth Floor. If your Travis County matter is already on file, it will be heard in one of those two courtrooms.
Most first conversations happen by phone or video. We’ll meet in person once there’s a reason to be in the same room.
The first call is short. None of this is required and you don’t need to organize anything ahead of time, but each item you have on hand leaves more of the call for actual conversation.
In Travis County, the cause number belongs at the top of that list. The county clerk dockets odd-numbered probate, guardianship and trust cases in Probate Court No. 1 and even-numbered ones in Probate Court No. 2, so the last digit tells us which judge has your case and which court’s practices apply before we’ve read a page of the file.
Travis County Probate Courts Local Rule 1.3(a)(3), consistent with Government Code Section 25.2293: the county clerk dockets all odd-numbered probate, guardianship and trust cases in Probate Court No. 1 and all even-numbered ones in Probate Court No. 2.
Travis is our home county, and most of the work from this office is filed and heard there. We also appear in the surrounding counties. Each of them runs its own docket under its own practices, so when a matter is outside Travis we check how that court handles it instead of assuming the Travis rules carry over, because often they don’t.
Call or book a time and give us the short version: what the dispute is about, who’s on the other side, and whether a date has already been set. If it’s a contested Travis County matter, we’ll say so. If it belongs with a different kind of firm, we’ll tell you that just as plainly.
The first conversation is short and free.