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Publication Date

2006

Abstract

I first met Richard "Dick"Vance Wellman when I was a graduate law student at The University of Michigan. As it turned out, Dick and I taught almost the same courses in our law schools. Perhaps I knew Dick best, however, as a Commissioner on Uniform State Laws.' The Model Probate Code (MPC) was promulgated in 1946 with Professor Lewis Simes, of The University of Michigan, as its Chief Reporter. As its name suggests, the Model Probate Code was intended to be a collection of probate statutes from which the respective states might pick and choose a well-drafted provision on a particular matter to be incorporated into their state statutes. Probate laws constituted an area of the law that was (and still is) primarily a province of state legislation, and one in which the respective states believed they had an exclusive proprietorship that they guarded jealously. The NCCUSL is an organization with commissioners from each state that attempts to achieve uniformity of the law by drafting legislation to be adopted by the various states. The NCCUSL achieved great success with the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and decided that its next project should be in the field of probate law. Therefore, in the mid-1960s, the NCCUSL attempted to create a Uniform Probate Code (UPC). Since the MPC had been drafted by Professor Lewis Simes, it was natural that the NCCUSL would return to Michigan for the reporter to draft the UPC. Dick Wellman was the Chief Reporter for the Uniform Probate Code. In this role, he led ten to fifteen reporters who were leaders in the field, including Paul Basye, who had been a reporter on the MPC with Professor Lewis Simes.

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