‘A Fool Go With Thy Soul, Whither it Goes’

   “A FOOL GO WITH THY SOUL, WHITHER IT GOES.”  A notable line from Shakespeare; specifically Henry IV, Part 1.  The Earl of Douglas has just killed the knight Sir Walter Blunt in battle, thinking him to be the King, because the King had persuaded (or coerced) several of his men to wear his own clothes as a decoy.  Douglas is prophesying that Blunt will carry the distinction of having died a fool into eternity, regardless of his destination.  Not a charitable statement, nor one that I would ever  dream of speaking to a grieving family. But these words have certainly played through my mind on numerous occasions as a probate attorney. 
   The possible scenarios are endless: a husband who never tells his wife about the child he fathered out of wedlock years ago and then dies without a will, setting up litigation between the widow and the child over the estate.  Two elderly bachelor farmers co-owning a house (and very little else in the way of assets) but not realizing their co-ownership does not include rights of survival (in Wisconsin, the right of survival is only automatic between spouses) so that when one of them dies, the other loses half the house and his own standard of living in the process.  An owner of a going business worth several million dollars who refuses to pay a lawyer to prepare her estate plan but leaves her children a piece of paper telling them to “work it out among ...