Streisand does not anticipatethe ordeal affecting the children's guardianship case.

Legal guardians may be appointed in guardianship cases for adults (see also conservatorship).

One court official told the grand jury that a guardianship case "goes into a 'black hole"' when an incapacitated person dies.

The Accountant of Court's Office formerly also dealt with guardianship cases in respect of adults with incapacity.

Yisroel Schulman, executive director of the nonprofit New York Legal Assistance Group, said he consults on about 125 guardianship cases a year.

The circuit courts have exclusive original jurisdiction over probate and guardianship cases, criminal felony cases, and civil cases where the amount in controversy exceeds US$25,000.

His lawyers have said that Mr. Marshall, who arranged for the artwork to be sold, noticed the error while reviewing the tax return as part of the guardianship case.

"Many of the recipients of multiple and lucrative appointments in guardianship cases had connections to judges, political parties or court-system personnel," it said, "raising concerns that they were selected based on factors other than merit."

Mr. Marshall's lawyers have said that he first noticed the painting's overstated original price on his mother's tax return while reviewing documents in a guardianship case brought against him in July by his son Philip.

South Texas sponsors the "Direct Representation Clinics," which provide legal representation to low-income residents of Harris County, Texas in the areas of family law, probate, estate planning, and guardianship cases.

The tax matter involving the Hassam painting, also known as "Up the Avenue From 34th Street, May 1917," has become a costly problem for Mr. Marshall since the resolution last month of the guardianship case.

A former lawyer who has been a central figure in a Brooklyn judicial scandal pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor yesterday, saying he had paid for drinks and dinner for a judge more than 100 times in exchange for lucrative appointments to guardianship cases.

"This seems to be the first guardianship case in the nation in which an appeals court recognized a homosexual partner's rights as tantamount to those of a spouse," said M. Sue Wilson, the lawyer for Ms. Kowalski's lover, Karen Thompson.

The jury found him guilty of asking a court employee for $500 for a promotion that was never given; demanding a loan from a bank with a guardianship case before him, and asking a Johnstown lawyer for a "commission" after making a generous award to the lawyer's clients.

That was the date that J. P. Morgan Chase assumed control of the apartment as part of the guardianship case brought by her grandson Philip Marshall, who had accused his father, Anthony D. Marshall, 82, of neglecting the care of Mrs. Astor, 104.