Small Law Firms

A Trusts And Estates Attorney’s Visit To Paris

Try as she might, this trusts and estates attorney couldn't escape her practice area while she was on vacation.

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Most people would agree that vacations are important for physical and mental health. As a solo practitioner, I do not work more than my big firm colleagues, but I do work differently. The need for time off is necessary, but also difficult to plan. Scheduling coverages, overseeing transactions, and a lot of worrying accompany planning a vacation for a solo, whose business is in many ways, a real extension of one’s self.

It comes as no surprise, then, that on a recent holiday to Paris, I found myself living my law practice through historical, artistic, and cultural sights. In other words, I could not get away from my trusts and estate practice and the principals that drive me.

The trip started with a visit to Musée d’Orsay. I immediately encountered Dante and Virgil, an oil on canvas painting by William-Adolphe Bougureau. The painting, which is quite graphic, shows Dante and Virgil observing two souls fighting with one another. Actually Gianni Schicchi is biting a heretic named Capocchio. The painting is based on Dante’s The Divine Comedy, a narrative poem completed in 1320. Schicchi, a character (who is the subject of a Puccini opera) is dammed because he has frauded another out of his inheritance by the creation of a counterfeit last will and testament. As an estate litigator, I can appreciate the idea of damming an individual to hell for stealing another’s inheritance.

Not far from the D’Orsay is the Seine River which divides Paris into two banks and is as synonymous with the City as perhaps the Eiffel Tower or Arc D’Triumphe. I learned on my trip that Napoleon Bonaparte hand-wrote two codicils to his last will and testament as he readied to die in exile in St. Helena in 1821. On April 16, 1821, he wrote: “I want my ashes to rest on the banks of Seine, among the French people whom I loved so much.” He also uses the codicils to bequeath his tangible personal property and money to various supporters and to his “good and dear mother.” Napoleon’s ashes were returned “for burial in the Hôtel des Invalides” in 1840 (“retour des cendres”). The return of the ashes took much political effort and was the cause of some debate given the political climate in nineteenth century France. As an estate planner, I was very impressed with Napoleon’s insistence on penning his directions, so as to make no question as to his final wishes.

An artisan on the street in Le Marais, unimpressed with my French and sure of my nationality, asked me if I was going to visit Florida-born Jim Morrison’s apartment, nearby in the 4th arrondissement on Rue Beautreillis. Morrison died there in March 1971 at the age of 27.  After speaking a bit, he reminded me of Morrison’s final resting place at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris where Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde are also interned. Morrison, like so many other deceased celebrities, has left various notebooks and tapes that have been auctioned through the years including a notebook of poetry titled Paris Journal.

Perhaps the greatest reminder of my dedication to my trusts and estates practice came at the original Chanel store at 31 Rue Cambon in the 1st arrondissement, the site of the first Chanel store. Today it is swarming with tourists and shoppers reaching for quilted purses, ballerina flats, and the famous Chanel No. 5 perfume. On January 10, 1971, its founder, Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel, French fashion designer, icon, and business woman, uttered her last words at the Hotel Ritz where she lived for more than 30 years. Iconically, Coco asserted: “You see, this is how you die.”  Surely Coco was on to something as her empire and legacy are not only still relevant, but have dominated the fashion world as evidenced by Paris’s couture fashion shows this week.

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Cori A. Robinson is a solo practitioner having founded Cori A. Robinson PLLC, a New York and New Jersey law firm, in 2017. For more than a decade Cori has focused her law practice on trusts and estates and elder law including estate and Medicaid planning, probate and administration, estate litigation, and guardianships. She can be reached at cori@robinsonestatelaw.com. 

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