Belli

I dissent. There is no debate over the reasonableness of the fee or the value of the attorneys’ services. The question is one of probate jurisdiction. Under the authority of Probate Code section 1020.1 and Estate of Baglione (1966) 65 Cal.2d 192 [ 53 Cal.Rptr. 139 , 417 P.2d 683 ], and by analogy to Estate of Kerr (1966) 63 Cal.2d 875 [ 48 Cal.Rptr. 707 , 409 P.2d 931 ], I think the probate court had jurisdiction to make an award out of the trust to the attorneys whose services had resulted in its transformation into a stable, nondefeasible asset. Although testamentary, the trust had been so thoroughly reconstructed by the compromise of the will contest that the fee award did not represent a tangible intrusion on the testator’s intent.

A contingent fee contract of the kind involved here aids in the establishment of assets which might otherwise be lost to the will contestant. So viewed, it has great therapeutic value. That value is substantially impaired if the attorney, at the time of undertaking the project, may not look to the assets established by his work as the acknowledged source of his fee.

I make nothing of the fact that the client is sole beneficiary of the trust.…

Appellant bank is testamentary trustee under the last will and testament of Ata Muhammad, who died on January 6, 1961. The appeal is from an order made in the estate proceeding on July 18, 1967, fixing attorneys’ fees and directing the executors to pay those fees to respondent attorneys for services performed by them on behalf of Yasmin Muhammad, the decedent’s minor daughter, in a contest of decedent’s will.

The will was admitted to probate on February 3, 1961. After the payment of taxes, approved claims, and the expenses of administration, the will *729 left one-fourth of the residuary estate (including mineral rights) in trust for Yasmin’s support, education, and welfare (hereinafter, “Trust ‘A’”). The will directed appellant bank, as trustee, to apply to those trust purposes so much of the trust property (corpus, income, and revenue therefrom) as the trustee in its sole and absolute discretion deemed best. 1 The will gave the other three-fourths of the residuary estate (including mineral rights) to a different trust for the benefit of the decedent’s brother and four nephews (hereinafter, “Trust ‘B’”). The testator authorized the trustee of Trust “A” to terminate the…