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An experiment of historic importance for the future of the AngloAmerican law of wills has been in progress over the last decade in Australia. Two states of the federation, Queensland and South Australia, have enacted prototype statutes that abrogate the traditional rule of strict compliance with the requirements of Wills Act formality. The new statutes enable the probate court to validate a will even when the testator has failed to comply fully with the Wills Act. The Queensland statute uses language for which I bear some responsibility; it authorizes "substantial compliance" with the Wills Act. In the hands of the Queensland courts the measure has been a flop. They have read "substantial" to mean "near perfect" and have continued to invalidate wills in whose execution the testator committed some innocuous error. In South Australia, by contrast, the legislation employs different words, the so-called "dispensing power," directed to the same end. This statute has produced a triumph of law reform. The South Australian courts have welcomed their new power to excuse harmless errors, and they have used it vigorously. An ample case law, which is the main subject of this Article, provides a vantage point for assessing the reform. The cruelty of the old law has disappeared. The concerns that motivated the former strict compliance rule have been put to the

Excusing Harmless Errors in the Execution of Wills: A Report on Australia's Tranquil Revolution in Probate Law