It’s very cool to see abqjournal highlight Merri’s efforts as Bernalillo County Probate Judge. In her years in office, she and her staff have taken on twice as many cases as in prior years. The court serves the general public and attorneys more effectively than ever. Never one to stop, Merri has more plans for the court in the years she has left in office.

Term limits will do what no opponent dared: boot her out of office in 2010. She’ll leave behind a great staff and model court. mjh

PS: Merri writes about probate matters every other week for abqjournal. (For a pittance, especially considering the effort and craft.) She recently wrote very movingly about her friend and mentor in Remembering Justice Pamela Minzner

ABQjournal Opinion: Probate a Little Easier

A death in the family is always painful, and any effort to ease the survivors’ burden is welcome. The Bernalillo County Probate Court is making just such an effort, with a new electronic system that makes it easier for family members to follow the progress of an estate through probate.

Instead of trekking up to the sixth floor of the county office building on Civic Plaza to check documents, or making repeated telephone calls to the court for information, members of the public can now make online searches at www.bernco.gov/probate.

Probate Judge Merri Rudd and her staff are to be commended for making a difficult process just a little easier for folks.

ABQjournal Metro: Old Probate Files Go Online
By Scott Sandlin, Journal Staff Writer

Say you are a beneficiary of your late uncle’s estate, and so is your brother— the one you’re not talking to.

You want to find out if the probate case has been filed.

Help is just a few mouse-clicks away, at a new online search feature of the Bernalillo County Probate Court, www.bernco.gov/probate.

The electronic case lookup is an innovation of Probate Judge Merri Rudd and her staff, allowing the public access to docket information on all cases filed between 1978 and now.

Bernalillo County is the only probate court in the state to offer online dockets— fittingly, because the biggest caseload is in the Albuquerque metropolitan area. The court handles more than 400 cases a year, almost double the number since 2000.

Rudd said people now can type in a name to find out if a case has been filed for a particular person— known as a decedent— or conduct more general searches on which cases were filed in a given month.

The latter function may be especially useful for creditors who need to file a claim against an estate.

Family members will be able to track the progress of a case already filed, or see if it has been filed at all. Rudd says she has dozens of calls daily from individuals wondering if a case has been filed.

Genealogists also will be able to research family histories.

Copies of the actual document still must be obtained in person at the Probate Court, on the sixth floor of the county office building on Civic Plaza downtown. They’re 50 cents a page.

Rudd, one of the few probate judges statewide who is also an attorney, has been active in reaching out to the public to explain the probate process. Her office has published free brochures on topics related to probate, including a court overview, duties of the personal representative, making claims against a probate estate, what constitutes an heir and what is real property in the probate context. She also writes a column for the Albuquerque Journal business section, helped devise do-it-yourself forms for probate filings, hosts a television show on GOV-TV, Channel 16 and has spoken to hundreds of groups about probate.

She also performs weddings.

The essence of probate is this: A dead person can’t transfer title to property. That means if someone dies and has title to property in his or her sole name, a personal representative must be appointed to represent the estate and handle the property.

The actual size of the estate doesn’t determine whether a case is filed in Probate Court or District Court, which also has jurisdiction over probate matters. Contested cases and other formal proceedings always go to District Court. Probate Court is for informal, uncontested cases.

Bernalillo County funded the case lookup system out of general funds for roughly $10,000 total, and ICON created the software. Now the office is turning to the task of making filings back to 1950 available.

Rudd, who by statute is a part-time elected official, oversees a historic domain. Among documents in the Probate Court files are documents in the flowing, lyrical hand script— and early typed documents— dating back to the late 19th century.

The oldest document in the probate file dates to Aug. 20, 1860. It is a handwritten household inventory, listing bees, chickens, rabbits, tame horses, oxen, burros and saddle blankets.

The owner also lists a house, worth $150, and land worth $13.