★✩ The Probate Practitioner’s Handbook is now 30 years old and in its ninth edition. It is a mark of its utility that my copy is already home to a lot of sticky notes, flagging a useful section here or the answer to a particularly knotty problem there. The handbook is helpfully divided into three principal sections (plus appendices), underlining how our work is very much a blend of the law, our professional obligations and day-to-day practicalities. There are also key extracts from the Law Society Wills and Inheritance Protocol. In this age of specialisation, it is an important reminder that estate administration goes in tandem with the making of wills.