Probate.Help launches archive of 204 real Florida estate cases

Sarasota probate lawyer Rachel Schadt has launched Probate.Help, a free Florida probate resource built around 204 real case studies, 286 statute explainers and 174 guides. The site aims to make estate law easier to understand by pairing unusual inheritance stories with the Florida rules that would govern similar disputes.

Why it matters: - Probate disputes often turn on facts people never expect to matter, including survivorship rules, trust wording, witness requirements and pet trusts. - Probate.Help is designed to show how those rules play out in real cases, then connect each story to the Florida law that would control the same outcome. - The site is free and covers probate, estate planning and trust administration across Florida.

What happened: - Rachel Schadt, a Sarasota probate lawyer, published Probate.Help as a public resource for Florida probate law. - The site now includes 204 real probate case histories in The Probate Archive. - Each archive entry ends with the specific Florida statute that would govern the same facts in Florida. - The site also includes 286 plain-English explainers of Florida statutes and rules at the statute library. - Probate.Help also offers 174 how-to guides at the guides section and three interactive tools at the tools page. - County-by-county coverage spans all 67 Florida counties at local pages.

The details: - The archive includes Urooj Khan’s case, in which he collected a $1 million Chicago lottery prize in July 2012 and died the next day. - The archive also covers Abraham Shakespeare, a Lakeland lottery winner who received $30 million in 2006, took $17 million in cash and later had his estate spend four years recovering a house for his two sons. - One case centers on Leona Helmsley, who left her Maltese, Trouble, $12 million; a judge reduced the amount to $2 million and gave $6 million to grandchildren she had cut out of the will. - Trouble lived the rest of her life at a Sarasota hotel and had a security detail. - Another entry covers Gene Hackman and his wife, who died about a week apart in February 2025. - Hackman’s wife left a will requiring her husband to outlive her by 90 days, and Hackman missed that mark by roughly seven days. - The archive also includes Elvis Presley’s estate, where an unwitnessed one-page amendment removed Priscilla Presley as trustee and misspelled her name. - Months later, a stranger published a foreclosure notice for Graceland in a Memphis newspaper. - Ann Aldrich’s case shows how a $2 E-Z Legal Form will reached the Florida Supreme Court after she listed all her assets, then later inherited more property. - The form had no residuary clause, so the later-acquired property passed to two nieces she had never named. - Florida Supreme Court held that result was correct. - The statute library explains issues including intestacy, the spousal share, homestead, the elective share, creditor claims, summary administration, formal administration, personal-representative duties and trust administration. - Section numbers auto-link across the site, so readers can move from a case study to the controlling law.

Between the lines: - The project turns probate law into a story-driven reference tool, which may reach readers who would not start with a statute book or legal guide. - The cases show that small drafting errors, timing gaps and missing formalities can redirect entire estates. - Schadt said the goal was to pair engaging stories with the law that decides them in Florida. - Schadt also said probate often lands on people at the worst moment and the law is hard to read.

What's next: - The full archive, statute library, guides and tools are live now at Probate.Help. - Schadt said the site will continue serving as a free Florida probate resource. - Rachel Schadt Law says it handles formal and summary administration, trust administration and estate planning on flat fees.

The bottom line: - Probate.Help is using real cases, plain-English statutes and interactive tools to make Florida estate law easier to understand, while showing how often family outcomes hinge on details buried in the paperwork.