The fall season is a beautiful time of year, but it also marks the beginning of flu season, which can pose a serious threat to your elderly loved ones. Fortunately, there are several steps you can take to ensure their well-being during the colder days ahead, including making sure you’re able to step in and help them with their medical and financial needs.
Keep reading to find out how.
Read MoreAs our senior population continues to expand, an increasing number of elder abuse cases involving professional guardians have made headlines. The New Yorker exposed one of the most shocking accounts of elder abuse by professional guardians, which took place in Nevada and saw more than 150 seniors swindled out of their life savings by a corrupt Las Vegas guardianship agency.
The Las Vegas case and others like it have shed light on a disturbing new phenomenon — individuals who seek conservatorship to take control of the lives of vulnerable seniors and use their money and other assets for personal gain. Perhaps the most frightening aspect of such abuse is that many seniors who fall prey to these unscrupulous guardians have loving and caring family members who are unable to protect them.
In the first part of this series, we detailed how criminally minded individuals can take advantage of an overloaded court system and seize total control of seniors’ lives and financial assets by gaining court-ordered conservatorship. Here we’ll discuss how seniors and their adult children can use proactive estate planning to prevent this from happening.
Read MoreThis is the first in an ongoing series of articles discussing the true costs and consequences of failed estate planning. The series highlights a few of the most common — and costly — planning mistakes we encounter with clients. If the series exposes any potential gaps or weak spots in your plan, meet with your Personal Family Lawyer to learn how to properly address them.
When it comes to estate planning, most people automatically think about taking legal steps to ensure the right people inherit their stuff when they die. And these people aren’t wrong.
Indeed, putting strategies in place to protect and pass on your wealth and other assets is a fundamental part of the planning equation. However, providing for the proper distribution of your assets upon your death is just one part of the process.
And it’s not even the most critical part.
Planning that’s focused solely on who gets what when you die is ignoring the fact that death isn’t the only thing you must prepare for. You must also consider that at some point before your eventual death, you could be incapacitated by accident or illness.
Read MoreVacations are a time to relax, unwind, and create beautiful memories with your loved ones. But before you set off on your adventure, it's essential to ensure that your legal affairs are in order so you can fully relax during your travels.
Can’t imagine doing one more thing before you take some much-needed time away?
Don’t worry! Our Personal Family Lawyer® is here to guide you through these important tasks, so you can enjoy your vacation worry-free. Plus, these steps only take a little time to complete and can provide you with peace of mind knowing that you have made proper arrangements if the unexpected happens to you or your family while you’re away.
Read MoreWhen it comes to putting off or refusing to create an estate plan, your mind can concoct all sorts of rationalizations: “I won’t care because I’ll be dead,” “I’m too young,” “That won’t happen to me,” or “My family will know what to do.”
But these thoughts all come from a mix of pride, denial, and above all, a lack of real education about estate planning and the consequences to your family of not planning. Once you understand exactly how planning is designed to work and what it protects against, you’ll realize there is no acceptable excuse for not having a plan.
Indeed, the first step in creating a proper plan is to thoroughly understand the potential consequences of going without one. In the event of your death or incapacity, not having a plan could be incredibly traumatic and costly for both you and your family, who will be forced to deal with the mess you’ve left behind.
While each estate and family are unique, here are some of the things most likely to happen to you and your loved ones if you fail to create a plan.
Read MoreAt this time of year, young people across the country are about to reach a key milestone: high school graduation. If you have a child claiming their diploma, now is the time to prepare them for life after leaving the nest.
Graduating high school is a significant accomplishment. However, it comes with serious responsibilities that your child probably isn't thinking much about right now. Once your child turns 18, they become a legal adult, and specific areas of their lives that were once under your control will, by law, be solely their responsibility.
While your child will now be a legal adult, you still have essential parental duties. Yet, if you don't support your child to step into adulthood with legal documents in place to help both of you, it can be challenging and costly for you to help them in the event of an emergency.
Read More
