A legal expert offers their opinion on why a family would refuse an autopsy following Michelle Trachtenberg’s unexpected d eath

A legal expert offers their opinion on why a family would refuse an autopsy following Michelle Trachtenberg’s unexpected d eath

The NYC Medical Examiner’s Office confirmed to PEOPLE that Trachtenberg’s family objected to an autopsy after her sudden death at 39 on Feb. 26

Despite Michelle Trachtenberg’s sudden death at age 39, the late actress’ family objected to an autopsy, leaving her cause of death to be ruled as “undetermined.”

Questions lingered in the wake of the decision, and now legal expert Neama Rahmani, president of West Coast Lawyers, is breaking down why this would have occurred in an exclusive interview with PEOPLE.

According to Rahmani, an autopsy is “not required by law unless the circumstances of the death are suspicious.”

Rahmani says if Trachtenberg’s death was being investigated with suspicion of foul play, such as murder, a medical examiner would be required by law to perform an autopsy in order to hold a suspect accountable.”If it’s a suicide, if it’s a natural death [or] those types of cases where no one’s going to be prosecuted, the autopsy is not required by law,” he explains.

“The problem is sometimes we’ve seen autopsies become public, and the family members will actually file lawsuits to keep autopsies private because sometimes there’s information in the autopsy that can cast a bad light on the deceased.”

The lawyer notes in instances of alcohol or drug-related deaths, family members may want to keep anything found from going public since the information would be unlikely to add to the case.