“People behave in their wills the way they behave in life,” says Anne Meister, who became D.C.’s Register of Wills in February, 2007. Meister is examining the original will of Robert E. Peary, who explored the
Meister was formerly staff attorney to the D.C. Council, then Chief of Staff for David Clarke, and later Legislative Counsel to D.C. Council, followed by an interval at Harvard getting a Masters in Public Administration and then private practice where she became increasingly involved in all sorts of probate matters.
“I like public service,” says Meister, in her office in Court Building A, with its mid-century accessories and a large, unframed, abstract painting – gorgeous purple and black paint splotches – made by her husband, artist and lawyer Jay Schiffres. “I decided that I had maybe one more job in me. I know how to do public service, and I enjoy it.”
Meister now heads the Superior Court’s Probate Division, where she is in charge of 45 employees charged with running the division’s five sections – the Clerk’s Office, Auditing and Appraisals Branch, the Legal Branch, Systems Administration Section and Quality Assurance Section. She arrived at the court with a good background in probate law and the court’s operations from her private practice, and impressed with the Court’s staff.
When Meister first came to the Probate Division, she found an unwieldy number of docket codes – 600+ of them, covering every possible type of filing. “I could never have learned them all,” says Meister. Meister whittled them down to one laminated sheet’s worth of codes per case type that she says should help the Probate Division staff move cases more efficiently. And quickly, she hopes – one of Meister’s other first big projects was making her way through the office’s many thousands of open probate files, and make recommendations to the court as to which of those cases should be closed. “With rare exception we’re hoping all estate cases will close roughly within three years from the date of filing,” says Meister.
Meister has also overseen the beginning of a new guardianship assistance program at the court, which brings social work students from area schools – Howard, the
Another ongoing project – one you can see pinned up on the walls around Court Building A’s second floor – is the Wills Project. Meister worked with the Estates, Trusts and Probate Law Section of the D.C. Bar. The wills of 13 famous Washingtonians are on display – including those of Frederick Douglass, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Woodrow Wilson, Dolly Madison – showing what they made of their estates; there are plans to add four or five new wills per year.
While waiting for your Court Building A cases to be called, you can peruse the last wishes of Franklin Pierce – fourteenth President of the United States (and the only President from New Hampshire) – who gives away his swords to his nephews, with the explanation that these swords are to be used “for repelling foreign aggressions and vindicating the rights of American citizens, the world over.”
Or down the hall you can see the will of Euphemia Lofton Haynes, who became the first African American woman to receive a PhD in math, when she got her doctorate in math from
“And because she was a mathematician she set the minimum interest rate,” says Meister. (It’s set at 4%, just incidentally.)
Grover Cleveland, meanwhile, made a codicil – hanging next to James Monroe’s will - that specifies that once he is buried, he is not to be dug up again unless it was very important to his wife that he be moved somewhere she found pleasanter for all eternity; Cleveland also specified that a monument – “only moderately expensive” – be erected at his grave. And Alexander Graham Bell simply gave everything to his wife in fee simple.
“Isn’t that fabulous?” says Meister. “It’s so historical. It’s so wonderful. This job – I find it fascinating.”
Arin Greenwood is a contract attorney and freelance writer based in
