MARCH 5, 2012 VOLUME 19 NUMBER 9 We have written before about changes to Arizona guardianship, conservatorship and probate proceedings adopted in the past year. Changes involved both probate laws and court rules. One thread running through both sets of changes: the notion that proceedings in probate court could be unnecessarily complicated by “vexatious litigants.”…
FEBRUARY 27, 2012 VOLUME 19 NUMBER 8 Phoenix-area resident Larry Robertson (not his real name) was undoubtedly fading mentally, but he had made plans for handling his affairs. He had created a revocable living trust, signed a power of attorney and created a beneficiary deed. All those documents named a husband-and-wife team who were also…
Review by Eric R. Severson, Esq., Wellington, Florida Book by Thomas J. Stanley, Ph.D. and William D. Danko, Ph.D. “Whatever your income, always live below your means.” Stanley & Danko, The Millionaire Next Door at 161. This simple rule is very hard to live by in our high consumption society. My wife and I have…
Review by Robert L. McClelland, Esq., Lexington, Kentucky Reinventing Retirement, by Miriam Goodman When I look for a book on retirement planning, I want more than a financial planning book. Although financial planning is very important, retirement planning is broader. After all, isn’t our pursuit in “retirement” to “finally” be doing the things we want…
Review by Linda Greenberg, Esq., Palos Verdes, California Book by Julie Jason My review is on “The AARP Retirement Survival Guide – How to Make Smart Financial Decisions in Good Times and Bad.” The author, Julie Jason is a personal money manager who started her career as a securities lawyer 30 years ago. Her goal in writing…
FEBRUARY 20, 2012 VOLUME 19 NUMBER 7 OK — you’ve signed your will and paid the big lawyer’s fee. Now you want to make a change. Do you know how to modify your will? Can you do it without incurring another fee? Shouldn’t it be easy to make the change? All that might have been…
Review by Christina Nevins, Esq., Boynton Beach, Florida Book by Daniel R. Solin Let me first say that I don’t usually enjoy reading financial planning books. Don’t get me wrong. I do read them, because I know that I need the information contained in them. I just don’t enjoy the process, finding that many are…
FEBRUARY 13, 2012 VOLUME 19 NUMBER 6 A Texas probate judge appointed Frederick and Lorraine Cooper (see note below) as guardian of their adult developmentally disabled daughter Cathy in 2003. Three years later, Cathy moved into a group home in Grapevine, Texas. After Cathy had lived there for about two years, the group home operator…
Smart Women Don’t Retire – They Break Free: From Working Full-Time to Living Full-Time; The Transition Network and Gail Rentsch (June 2008). A review by Heather D. Barron, Esq. I reviewed Smart Women Don’t Retire – They Break Free: From Working Full-Time to Living Full-Time. I specifically wanted to know how retirement differs for women…
FEBRUARY 6, 2012 VOLUME 19 NUMBER 5 Here’s an anecdote that we expect to see repeating itself over the next few years. It involves a fifteen-year-old boy with severe disabilities, and the Maine state Medicaid program. It also involves Maine’s efforts, like those of other states (including Arizona), to trim its eligibility roles for Medicaid,…
