Amy B. DeGraeve practiced at The Counts Law Firm before the judges of Missouri’s Sixteenth Circuit appointed her probate commissioner in October 2021. Her practice included disputes over fiduciary duties, the administration of trusts and estates, guardianships and business succession. Her education at the University of Missouri–Kansas City brought together language and literature, law, and an advanced law degree in taxation.
Documents consulted
Jackson County Circuit Court · DeGraeve’s education, practice and appointmentSixteenth Circuit · court directoryThe record behind the inventory
DeGraeve served on the committee revising Jackson County’s probate procedures manual. That detail deserves a place beside the appointment. A published manual is one way the experience of practitioners can reach the person trying to understand what a court asks of a family. Judicial office and the quieter work of editing a procedure both shape a citizen’s encounter with government.
Publisher and bibliographer
An inventory may outlive both its maker and the collection it describes. I read estate records for titles of books, names of relatives and evidence that an object passed from one household to another. That is a historian’s reason to follow probate administration and a matter of community memory, even when the books themselves have dispersed.