“What a job!” Goldberg now declares, having completed the process only recently. Sonny listed 11 beneficiaries, and many of them were impatient to receive their inheritance. At least one was unhappy with his share. Goldberg had to find and inventory all of Sonny’s cash, along with decades’ worth of art, furniture, jewelry and other possessions, while keeping anxious relatives at bay.

For a time, the estate was mired in a personal injury lawsuit involving Sonny and her husband. Goldberg had to work alongside their attorney to win them a posthumous settlement. Goldberg also toiled at translation and detective tasks as she corresponded with officials in Germany and France to pursue a monetary award for the descendants of Sonny’s husband, a Holocaust survivor who received reparations during his lifetime. All the while, she took time to archive photos, poems, letters and other mementos in individualized albums detailing each beneficiary’s unique relationship with Sonny. “If I had to do it again, I would,” Goldberg says. “But I would rather not.”

The Executor’s Song
The role of executor, or personal representative, is a tremendous commitment. “My father used to say that he did not know anyone he liked or disliked enough to name as his executor,” says Jeff Kanaly, vice chairman of the Kanaly Trust in Houston. Very often, the role falls to a surviving spouse or child, who works alongside the attorney responsible for drafting the will. While attorneys help executors manage the legal issues, they are often reluctant to take on the fiduciary aspects of the job. Financial services firms offer corporate executor services, but many attorneys and financial advisors say that clients prefer a representative with a personal touch—a close relative or friend. Most people, with input from an attorney, can handle the work, making the extra fees charged by a corpor-ate executor an unnecessary expense.