Miss Birdie’s attempt to rewrite her will

Miss Birdie’s attempt to rewrite her will turns a free legal consultation into an uneasy contest among family grievance, concealed wealth, and a young lawyer’s ambition. She wants Rudy Baylor to cut her children and some grandchildren out of her estate, but the proposed changes expose how little he knows about the fortune, the legal and tax questions surrounding it, or the client herself. The effort remains incomplete and unsigned, leaving the conflict unresolved rather than converting her wishes into a finished estate plan.

The request and the existing will

At a legal clinic at Cypress Gardens Senior Citizens Center, Miss Birdie chooses Rudy after other prospective clients have gathered around his classmates. She approaches him privately with her will, which she says was prepared by her former lawyer, now dead. Its plain appearance and broad provisions unsettle Rudy: it directs two million dollars to each of her two children, places a million dollars in trust for each of eight grandchildren, and also names a church, a college, and numerous charities as beneficiaries. Rudy calculates that the gifts amount to at least twenty million dollars. For him, this is not merely an unusually large document. It is the first chance he can imagine to bring a major client to the firm where he expects to start work, and he briefly pictures the professional standing such a client might confer.

Miss Birdie’s instructions overturn the existing distribution. She wants four grandchildren whom she believes still love her to receive one million dollars apiece. Her other grandchildren are to receive nothing, and she insists that both her children be excluded as well. She offers little explanation at first, saying only that the matter is personal. Rudy asks who should inherit the balance; she names Reverend Kenneth Chandler, a television evangelist whose ministry she admires. She says he has called her after she mentioned that she might leave money to his work, and that he has continued contacting her and offered to visit in his private jet. Her decision is therefore tied not just to estrangement from family but also to a relationship with a religious figure who has taken a direct interest in the possible gift.

Family anger and Rudy’s divided judgment

Miss Birdie gives Rudy specific reasons for rejecting her sons. She distrusts Randolph’s third wife, whom she believes is interested in the family money, and says that Randolph’s inheritance would ultimately benefit his wife. She says she has not heard from Delbert in three years and wants him cut out too. The proposed will becomes an instrument for expressing hurt and distrust as well as for allocating property: the children and most grandchildren are excluded, while four grandchildren and Chandler are favored. When Rudy asks why the children should receive nothing, she does not offer a detailed account of the family history; the reasons she does disclose remain her own assessment of their conduct and loyalties.

Rudy’s response is compromised by his circumstances. He is facing a Texaco collection suit and possible eviction for unpaid rent, and the prospect of a wealthy client tempts him to imagine that Miss Birdie might leave him money. He recognizes that temptation even as he tells her he cannot be a beneficiary. His initial enthusiasm for the matter is set against his dawning awareness that the client needs more guidance than he can provide. He is a law student near graduation, not an experienced estate-planning lawyer, and he understands that a large estate calls for sophisticated planning rather than a quick alteration to a short will.

On a later visit, Rudy challenges the plan more directly. He says he is troubled by the severity of disinheriting family and by directing most of an estate to a television personality. He raises the possibility that Chandler may not deserve so large a gift and urges Miss Birdie to consider giving him a smaller share. She defends Chandler, citing his ministry’s expenses and the condition of his jet, and rejects Rudy’s attempt to question her religious judgment. Rudy also explains that estate planning could reduce taxes, but she resists the legal complexity and suspects that lawyers may want to insert themselves into wills. Her suspicion has a basis in her experience: she says her former lawyer pressed her to include him as a beneficiary after learning something of her wealth.

The concealed fortune

The scale and origin of the estate emerge only gradually. Miss Birdie has lived without the outward signs Rudy associates with wealth: her house and furnishings are old, she drives an old car, and she has no household staff. She reveals that the money is in Atlanta and that her children do not know about the full amount. Although they know that her first husband, Thomas, left her close to a hundred thousand dollars, she believes they assume that sum has grown to several times its original size. The hidden fortune is therefore also a means of keeping her family from knowing the true extent of her resources.

Miss Birdie explains that most of the money came through her second husband, Anthony Murdine. They married after Thomas’s death and lived together for nearly five years before separating. Murdine later inherited wealth from a brother shortly before his own death, leaving no will; as his wife, Miss Birdie received the inheritance under Georgia law. She says a law firm in Atlanta contacted her after Murdine died. Rudy learns that the estate was substantial and controversial, and that a Georgia court sealed the file. Miss Birdie also says the assets are held in trust with a trust company, not in real estate, and that she receives income during her lifetime before the money passes to the beneficiaries she names. She does not disclose the income or the full amount to Rudy, and insists that he has no need to know the former.

That secrecy limits the advice Rudy can give. He needs reliable information about the estate to prepare a sound will and assess tax concerns, but Miss Birdie wants him to perform a narrower task while withholding essential details. She admits that she did not tell her former lawyer everything either. Her willingness to reveal the fortune to Rudy does not mean she is ready to entrust him with the whole story; she continues to control what he learns and when. The concealed assets thus complicate the proposed disinheritance: Rudy must address an estate whose source, administration, and full value he cannot independently establish from what she tells him.

An unfinished plan

The will does not become a settled document. Rudy and Miss Birdie return to Cypress Gardens, where she becomes touchy about the subject and the draft remains incomplete and unsigned. She is wavering about leaving the fortune to Chandler because she has not heard from him. Rudy tries to encourage that hesitation, but their conversations remain unpredictable: she asks practical questions about whether a disinherited son’s wife might sue her estate or whether she can give the money away during her lifetime, then shifts the discussion to her garden. She is more comfortable raising difficult questions while Rudy is helping with mulch and potting soil than during formal discussions over coffee, and she remains wary of lawyers even while seeking their help.

Rudy investigates what he can, confirming Miss Birdie’s marriage to Anthony Murdine and learning of the sealed Georgia estate file. He prepares a five-page revised will and takes it to Professor Howard L. Smoot, who scans it quickly and says it looks fine without examining its substance. Smoot is surprised that Miss Birdie is wealthy; Rudy keeps the details to himself. The casual approval does not resolve the deeper problem: Miss Birdie’s instructions are changing, the document is unsigned, and Rudy lacks a complete account of the property he is supposed to distribute.

The episode therefore ends without a completed rewrite or a final decision about the beneficiaries. Miss Birdie’s attempt exposes the gap between making a will sound simple and responsibly advising someone about a large, concealed estate. It also makes Rudy confront the difference between serving a client and seeing a fortune as an opportunity for himself. His growing caution does not erase his initial temptation, but it changes the encounter from a fantasy of sudden professional advancement into a difficult obligation shaped by incomplete information, family resentment, and a client who remains determined to decide what she will reveal.