Estate Planning

• Posted in: Estate Planning

I recently visited a friend in the hospital. The visit reminded me that we plan for vacations, we plan for retirement, but sometimes the most important thing to plan for is the one you don’t know is coming. Very few of us expect to have an extended stay in the hospital, but this shouldn’t stop […]

• Posted in: Elder Law

You’re an educated person. You have a degree, you’ve held a job, had responsibilities and a family. You’ve always done the smart thing and made what you hope are the right decisions, and you’d like to continue doing the smart thing. So when an “expert” hands you a flyer and tells you that for a few hundred or […]

• Posted in: Estate Planning

Have you ever watched a group of children divvying up a stash of sweets?  The process can be the most civilized thing you will ever witness, or it can resemble a pack of wild dogs descending on a fresh kill.  The process of distributing the personal effects of a deceased family member can fall within […]

• Posted in: Estate Planning

They say that opposites attract, which means that you and your spouse probably have varied interests and talents that complement each other and make it easier to share household tasks; one of you cooks and the other cleans, one of you does the outdoor chores and the other the indoor chores. Chances are good that […]

• Posted in: Current Affairs

Change is in the air for same-sex partnerships in California. The CA Supreme Court ruled yesterday to recognize gay marriage, a ruling that is meeting with mixed but strong reactions throughout the state—and the country. The overall significance of this landmark ruling has yet to be seen. California was one of the few states sympathetic to gay […]

• Posted in: Asset Protection

There are times when everybody needs a little motivation to plan for the future, but when you live in a situation that is outside the “norm” it’s even more important to think and to plan ahead. A little motivation to plan for retirement is exactly what many same-sex couples need, according to this study published in […]

• Posted in: Current Affairs

Can you imagine your beloved partner being gravely injured, and you unable to be at his or her bedside? For most of us this is unthinkable, but this is exactly what happened to Brett Conrad and Patrick Atkins, a gay couple of 25 years, when Patrick suffered a stroke in 2005 and was placed in […]

• Posted in: Current Affairs

When are you safe from meddling relatives if not when you’re dead? It turns out, even death is no safe haven, as this article by Tracy Breton in The Providence Journal suggests. According to the article, the Will of University of Rhode Island professor Beatrice S. Demers, who died last year at the age of 100, […]

• Posted in: Estate Planning

Thinking about who will care for your children if anything happens to you can be the most difficult thing in the world.  Although many people would like to shy away from the subject altogether, every parent knows how very important it is to ensure their children don’t end up as a ward of the state. […]

• Posted in: Estate Planning

When it comes to selecting a guardian (i.e. a “backup parent”) for your children, not every parent has a clear-cut decision. Who do you choose if you don’t have extended family with whom you are close? Or what if you are close to your family, but worry that the person who would make the best guardian […]