How We Research, Write,
& Verify Every Guide
Every guide on ProbateLawCenter.org is built from primary legal sources — enacted state statutes, official court records, and government publications. This page documents exactly how we do that work.
Primary Sources First — Always
The single most important standard at ProbateLawCenter.org is this: every factual claim about how probate law works must be traceable to a primary legal source. We do not source from other legal websites, law blogs, or secondary summaries — because those sources can be wrong, outdated, or jurisdiction-generic in ways that produce dangerous misinformation for someone navigating a real estate.
Primary sources are the actual legal documents that govern probate — the enacted statutes, official court rules, and government agency publications. Secondary sources are everything else: summaries, explainers, legal dictionaries, other websites. We use primary sources to build our guides. We treat secondary sources as pointers to find primary sources, never as the source itself.
Enacted State Statutes
The codified laws passed by each state's legislature and signed into law. The ultimate authority on what the law requires.
Official Court Rules & Procedures
Procedural requirements published by state judiciary systems — what forms to file, what fees to pay, what timelines courts impose.
Government Agency Publications
Official guidance published by government agencies — IRS, state revenue departments, and state department of finance publications.
Legal Research Organization Publications
Research and statistical publications from established legal organizations — used for supporting data only, never as the source for how a law works.
Five Steps From Statute to Published Guide
Every guide follows the same documented process — from initial source identification through publication. The process exists to enforce one rule: nothing is published without a traceable primary source citation.
Primary Source Identification
Before writing begins, the governing legal authority is identified and located. For state-specific guides, this means finding the current, enacted version of the relevant statute from the official state legislature database — not a cached copy, not a third-party reproduction, the live official source.
For topics that span multiple statutes (for example, executor compensation, which involves both the base statute and case law interpretations), all relevant code sections are identified and cross-referenced before writing begins.
Output: Verified list of primary source documents with direct URLs to official state sourcesCross-Reference & Gap Check
Statutes alone don't always tell the complete story. Courts add procedural requirements. Counties sometimes impose local rules beyond what state statute requires. Federal law intersects with state probate law in specific situations (estate tax, retirement accounts, federal liens).
The cross-reference step checks for these gaps — official court publications, local court standing orders, and applicable federal code are reviewed to ensure the guide captures the full picture of what's actually required in practice.
Output: Complete source map covering statute, court procedure, and federal intersectionsPlain-Language Translation
Statutory language is precise but often impenetrable to non-attorneys. The translation step converts statutory language into clear, accurate plain-language explanations — preserving the legal meaning while making it accessible to the executors, heirs, and families who need to act on this information.
Every plain-language statement is mapped back to its source. If a plain-language statement cannot be mapped to a specific statute or official source, it doesn't appear in the guide.
Output: Draft guide with every claim annotated to its source citationSource Audit & Scope Review
Before publication, every guide undergoes a source audit: each factual claim is traced back to its citation, claims without traceable sources are removed or revised, and the scope of each statement is checked to ensure it doesn't overstate what the source actually says.
The scope review also checks that the guide clearly operates within its educational purpose — explaining what the law says, not advising what any specific person should do with their specific estate.
Output: Source-audited guide ready for publicationPublication & Monitoring
Published guides display their review date so readers know how current the content is. Each guide is assigned an ongoing monitoring flag based on the state and topic — guides covering statutes that change frequently (small estate thresholds, executor compensation rates, court filing fees) are prioritized for review when state legislative sessions close.
When a substantive change is identified, the affected guide is pulled for review and updated before it can become a source of inaccurate information.
Output: Published guide with review date, assigned to monitoringThe Rules Every Guide Must Follow
These are not aspirational guidelines — they are enforced standards that determine what gets published and what doesn't. Guides that fail any of these standards are revised before publication, not published with caveats.
No claim about how the law works — deadlines, thresholds, procedures, fees — appears in a guide without a traceable citation to a primary source. "Common knowledge" and "general understanding" are not acceptable bases for published content on a legal information site.
Guides are built from currently enacted statutes — not from prior-year codifications, unofficial reproductions, or cached versions. When a guide cites a statute, the citation refers to the version currently in force in that state.
Probate law varies significantly by state. A statement that is true in California may be false in Texas. Our guides are specific to their jurisdiction. When we make a general statement about how probate typically works nationally, it is labeled as general — and state-specific guides always take precedence over general statements.
A statute that says an executor "may" do something does not support a guide stating the executor "must" do it. A statute setting a deadline for one type of notice does not support applying that deadline to a different type of notice. The scope of every claim is checked against the scope of its source.
When we cite a statistic — the percentage of estates that go through probate, the national average timeline, small estate thresholds — we trace it to the original research or official publication that produced the number. We do not cite secondary summaries of statistics, because those chains lose attribution and accuracy.
Citations Are Functional, Not Decorative
A citation in our guides is a specific reference to the statute, court rule, or government publication that directly supports the preceding claim. We do not use general attributions like "according to state law" or "courts require" without specifying which law and which jurisdiction. If a citation cannot be specific, the claim is either rewritten to reflect what can be specifically cited, or it is removed.
This is what citation practice looks like in our content:
Every factual claim in our guides follows this pattern: the statement, immediately followed by the specific statute or publication that supports it. No claim floats without a source.
Guides Are Living Documents
Probate law changes. State legislatures modify small estate thresholds, adjust executor compensation rates, create new simplified procedures, and revise creditor notice requirements. Federal estate tax thresholds adjust annually for inflation. Court filing fees change with court budget cycles.
When the source changes, the guide must change. The three categories below describe how and when updates are triggered:
Legislature Modifies the Statute
When a state legislature enacts amendments to probate-related statutes — threshold changes, deadline changes, new procedures — affected guides are flagged for review and updated to reflect current enacted law.
Court Modifies Procedure
When a probate court or state judiciary modifies filing requirements, fee schedules, or required forms, the relevant procedural content is updated. This includes annual court fee adjustments and form revisions.
Federal Threshold or Rate Change
Federal estate tax exemptions, IRS inflation adjustments, and federal agency guidance updates are monitored annually. Guides covering federal tax topics are reviewed each tax year for any relevant changes.
What "Last Reviewed" Means
Every guide displays a "last reviewed" date. This is the date we last verified the guide's content against current sources — not the original publication date. A guide with a recent review date means the content was checked against current statutes on that date and found to be accurate. A guide with an older date may still be current if the underlying law hasn't changed, but we flag older review dates as a transparency signal.
For rapidly changing topics — particularly small estate thresholds, which many states adjust every few years — we prioritize more frequent review cycles.
What This Site Is — And What It Isn't
Being clear about what ProbateLawCenter.org is — and isn't — is not just a legal disclaimer. It is the honest framing that makes this resource trustworthy and genuinely useful. Misrepresenting our scope would undermine the credibility that accurate primary-source research builds.
- A primary-source legal education resource — we explain how probate law works, sourced directly from statutes
- A plain-language translator of statutory language — making enacted law accessible to non-attorneys
- A comprehensive state-by-state reference — 50 unique guides built from each state's own statutes
- A free tool provider — calculators and checklists built from statutory data
- An attorney referral connector — for users who need professional counsel for their specific situation
Even within our educational scope, there are important limitations users should understand before relying on our content:
Questions About Our Research Standards
Explore the Guides Our Research Produces
Every guide on ProbateLawCenter.org is the output of the process described on this page — primary-source research, statutory verification, and plain-language translation for executors, heirs, and families.