According to The Wall Street Journal, banker Gerald J. Ford and four of his adult children are in court over his stake in Hilltop Holdings, worth roughly $600 million. His son, who is Hilltop's chair and chief executive, has sworn in a court filing that his father has had significant memory problems for years. The children also allege that Mr. Ford's wife of more than 25 years is influencing his decisions and limiting their access to him. Mr. Ford's side denies all of it and says the older children are simply seeking more than they have already received. Meanwhile, the shares sit in a family investment vehicle, and the parties dispute who has the authority to vote them.
I want to be careful here. None of these allegations have been decided by a court, and I have no view on which side is right. But the structure of the dispute is one I see regularly in Dallas probate court, at every level of wealth, and it is almost entirely preventable.
The two claims that end up in every contested estate
When a family fights over a will, a trust, or the control of a family entity, the challenge nearly always rests on one of two theories, and often both:
Lack of capacity. The person signing did not understand what they owned, who their family was, or what the document did.
Undue influence. Someone with access and opportunity — frequently a spouse, sometimes a child or a caregiver — substituted their own wishes for the signer's.
These claims are attractive to a disappointed heir because they are easy to allege and hard to disprove after the fact. The signer is often unavailable or unable to testify. The witnesses are the same family members who are fighting. And memory itself becomes the evidence: someone recalls Dad forgetting what city he was in, and that recollection carries weight it never would have had while he was sitting across the table from you.
What a well-documented plan looks like
The defense against both claims is built at signing, not at trial. When we help a client with a business interest or a blended family put a plan in place, we are also building the record that will protect it:
- Do it early. A plan made at 60, updated at 70, and confirmed at 80 is nearly impossible to attack. A plan first made at 82 invites the question of why it changed.
- Get a contemporaneous capacity letter from the client's physician when there is any reason to think one might be needed later. It is a small step that closes a large door.
- Meet with the client alone. The spouse, the children, and anyone who benefits from the document should not be in the room when the client tells the attorney what they want. We note that in the file.
- Use independent counsel for the spouse when a marital agreement is part of the plan. Gary Ashmore addresses this from the family law side in his companion article, Second Marriage, First Family, and our complex divorce team sees the other end of it when a plan that ignored the marriage comes apart in a property division.
- Explain the plan to the family while the client can still explain it themselves. A parent who sits down and says, "Here is what I have decided and why," takes away the argument that the plan was someone else's idea.
The family entity has to answer the succession question in writing
The most striking detail in the Journal's reporting, to me, is that the parties are litigating who may vote shares held in a family investment vehicle, and that it is unclear who would control them if Mr. Ford died. That is a drafting gap, not a family problem. A family limited partnership, LLC, or trust that holds a controlling business interest should state, without ambiguity:
- who holds voting authority today;
- what happens to that authority on the incapacity of the person holding it, and who decides that incapacity has occurred;
- what happens on death, and whether the successor is a person, a committee, or a trustee;
- how disputes among the family are resolved before they reach a courtroom.
If the document does not answer those questions, a judge will. And a judge will do it years later, at great expense, with the family divided into camps that may never reconcile.
Gifts without a framework
One more lesson. Mr. Ford's side argues the older children have already received substantial gifts. Lifetime gifts to some children, without a written family agreement about how gifts are counted, are one of the most reliable sources of sibling resentment I see. Equal is not always fair, and fair is not always equal, but whichever you choose should be written down, explained, and, where appropriate, reflected in the plan as an advancement. The children who received less should hear why from the parent, not discover it from a lawyer.
The choice is always yours until it isn't
I tell clients the same thing at nearly every first meeting: you can choose your estate plan, or you can take the no-plan estate plan and let the state and a judge decide. A family with a public company and a $600 million stake is now finding out what the second option costs. The families we help every day face the same choice with a business, a homestead, or a portfolio, and the answer is the same. Decide while you can, document that you decided, and tell the people who will live with the decision.
The Ashmore Law Firm, P.C. has served Dallas families since 1987 in estate planning, probate, guardianship, and family law — Where Family Law Meets Family Legacy. Relationships that matter. Experience you can count on.
Read Gary Ashmore's companion article: Second Marriage, First Family: What the Ford–Hilltop Fight Teaches About Marital Agreements in Texas.
Source: Ben Glickman, "A Texas Banking Billionaire and His Children Are Locked in a Bitter Succession Drama," The Wall Street Journal, Aug. 30, 2026 (subscription).
