Estate Planning, Probate, Power of Attorney Blogs & More

• Posted in: Current Affairs

We love our technology; cell phone, laptop, wi-fi, Kindle, iPod—all of these things keep us socially connected, culturally informed, and satisfy our growing need for instant gratification. But there is an assumption that this technological savvy and appreciation stops once you reach a certain age. We expect teens, twenty and thirty-somethings, and baby-boomers to be […]

• Posted in: Estate Planning

If you’ve been weighing the pros and cons of setting up a trust for your young child, wondering if you really have enough assets to warrant such an expense, you must read Stacey L. Bradford’s recent article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Deciding if Your Kid Is Trust-Worthy”. In her article Bradford explains why […]

• Posted in: Elder Law

We write a lot on our blog about the separate “pieces” of an estate plan, the unique financial challenges facing adults these days, or each of the many individual concerns we face in the course of keeping up with the present and planning for the future; but today we want to look at the big […]

• Posted in: Asset Protection

Many people count on life insurance to pay their estate tax when they pass away (allowing their heirs to keep non-liquid assets such as real estate without having to sell immediately), and this has always been a fairly safe and reliable strategy—as long as you’re keeping track of your policy. Arden Dale’s article in the […]

• Posted in: Wills

The process of creating a last will and testament hasn’t changed much over the centuries, and the requirements are few: Paper, pen, witnesses, and a testator who is of sound mind. This endurance and simplicity is one of the hallmarks of estate planning—and yet there are plenty of ways to incorporate technology into our practices […]

• Posted in: Estate Planning

Imagine for a moment that you (or you and your spouse) are in a car accident, knocked on the head, and suffer brain injuries great enough to put you into a coma for 2 weeks and require a full seven months of nursing and rehabilitative care. Thankfully, you make a full recovery of all your […]

• Posted in: Estate Planning

As an estate planning attorney, I often get asked the following question: “when should I review and update my estate plan?” Well, you may think that you are one of the smart ones: You already have an estate plan that you and your spouse created back in 1996; it’s sitting snugly in a safety deposit […]

• Posted in: Asset Protection

E-mail, blog, iTunes, social networking, online photo albums… more and more of our lives and our businesses are moving online, but what happens to that online life when you pass away? Will your accounts languish, becoming an easy mark for hackers? Eventually be deleted? Perhaps they’ll be passed to your spouse after petitioning the court […]

• Posted in: Asset Protection

There are many estate planning techniques available to a family that wants to protect assets to pass on to the children or grandchildren; options that extend far beyond a simple will, and even beyond a basic living trust. Two of these effective but lesser-known techniques are the Grantor Retained Annuity Trust (GRAT) and the Family […]

• Posted in: Estate Planning

If you or a loved one has spent any time in hospitals recently then you know that they operate under strict rules regarding privacy; rules that, according to this post by Tara Parker-Pope, can seem difficult or unfair. These rules prevent hospital staff from sharing information about patients (even with extended family members), and in […]