Jim Banks is a graduate of Indiana University with a teaching degree in secondary education. He also attended the University of Southern California where he worked fulltime at NCR and where he entered his first real estate deal. As a result he chose to follow a career in Probate Real Estate. He left his job and enrolled in law school and began investing in probate real estate. Today many as a leading authority of probate real estate recognize him. His experience is mostly hands-on and a lot of research. He has refined a system that enables him to buy personal property and real estate out of probate at huge discounts. For over 25 years Banks real estate investment course is still successful among probate seminars. He calls himself the "Godfather of Probate." In 2005 Jim Banks published the book , Creating Wealth Through Probate: The Best Kept Secret in Real Estate Investing, Dearborn-Kaplan Publishing, Chicago). This book has earned him top ratings with the Los Angeles Times.

This book is not just about probate real estate investing but it offers clear explanations why real estate purchases can be such lucrative investments. He also includes how to finance probate property acquisitions and what to do with profitable probate purchases. The book has a thoroughly complete appendix which is useful to probate property buyers. It includes state-by-state probate fees for attorneys and executors, probate notices, sample case work sheets of important information to obtain, judicial flow charts for every state and even estate and gift tax rates. Among chapter topics in his book are, "The Lawyer’s Gold Mine," "Real Estate", "The Big Nuggets of Investment", "Getting Started as a Probate Miner," "Assembling Your Real Estate Experts.", "Shopping and Closing Probate Deals," "Fixing Up your Fixer," and "True Tales from the World of Probate." Mr. Banks certainly has the education, experience and work ethic to be successful.