Kennedy’s will reveals more roles for Kirk

Just an interesting update on Senator Kennedy's estate.

Longtime friend is executor, trustee
Boston Globe, By: Jonathan Salzman

Three years to the day before he died, Senator Edward M. Kennedy named Paul G. Kirk Jr. as executor of his estate, according to a will filed yesterday with Barnstable Probate Court.

The five-page document signed by Kennedy on Aug. 25, 2006, underscores his close relationship with Kirk, a former Democratic National Committee chairman who was named yesterday as Kennedy’s interim successor by Governor Deval Patrick.

The same day Kennedy finalized his will, he named Kirk, along with himself, as a trustee of a trust in Kennedy’s name that will handle the senator’s assets.

The will says the trust will provide for Kennedy’s widow, Victoria R. Kennedy, his three adult children, and other unnamed descendants. But it gave no indication of the value of Kennedy’s assets, which came as little surprise to seasoned probate lawyers.

“It’s perfectly in line with what I would do for a wealthy client,’’ said Nancy E. Dempze, a Boston lawyer and former cochairwoman of the trust and estate section of the Boston Bar Association who was not involved in preparation of the will but reviewed a copy. “You want to keep all of that private,’’ she said.

A 2008 federal financial disclosure report indicated that the senator’s family fortune was worth tens of millions. The report, which included Kennedy’s assets and those of Victoria Kennedy and their dependents, listed a string of publicly and nonpublicly traded trusts and assets and a range of values. The report placed the net worth of his publicly traded assets somewhere between $15 million and $72.6 million.

Under the terms of Kennedy’s will, assets from two blind trusts that Kennedy established in his name in 1978 and 1987 were to be transferred after his death to the 2006 trust. The trustee of the 1978 blind trust is John C. Culver, a former Democratic senator from Iowa and a longtime Kennedy friend who played on the Harvard football team with him and spoke at his Aug. 28 memorial service. The trustee of the 1987 blind trust is Joseph A. Kouba of Los Angeles.

Politicians and business leaders often use blind trusts, in which they have no knowledge of their holdings, to shield themselves from accusations of making political or business moves to benefit their finances.

If Kirk cannot serve as executor of Kennedy’s estate, that duty will fall to Kennedy’s son, Edward M. Kennedy Jr., according to the will, which was filed by Kevin J. Willis, a lawyer at Ropes & Gray in Boston.

Dempze said it was possible that some of Kennedy’s assets might be disclosed in the next few months if a probate inventory is filed with the court. Such an inventory excludes jointly owned assets.

Kennedy’s one-page death certificate was also filed in Probate Court yesterday. It said Kennedy died at home at 11:33 p.m. on Aug. 25, 2009, and listed the cause of death as glioma, the malignant brain tumor with which he was diagnosed 15 months earlier. No autopsy was performed.