Editors' Note: The version of this article that appeared in the print edition on Sept. 16 was inadvertently truncated during the editorial process. It appears in its entirety below, or on Page 7 of the Sept. 17 Law Journal.
Hindsight may reveal that an irrevocable trust is "defective" in some key aspect. This "error" may have been caused by negligence or inadvertence or may be attributable to an intervening change in circumstances or in the governing legal and tax principles, any of which may result in adverse economic and tax consequences to the beneficiaries under the trust, which is now irrevocable.
