JULY 15, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 26 Do you have strong feelings about being an organ donor? It is a topic that too often goes undiscussed while preparing your estate plan. That’s one time to consider whether you want to be an organ donor — particularly if you have meant to address it but haven’t…
JULY 8, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 25 Under the English common law (inherited, to a greater or lesser degree, by all the states of the U.S.), a husband was obligated to support his wife and children. Because women could not legally enter into enforceable contracts, a person who provided goods or services to a woman…
JULY 1, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 24 Sometimes things just don’t work out the way you intend. That is hardly a novel observation, but it can have a big effect on the work you hire a lawyer to do for you. Let’s try an example. Suppose that you want to give some money to your…
JUNE 17, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 23 Last week a colleague told us a story that we think needs to be shared. Patricia Sitchler, a nationally-known San Antonio lawyer with the prominent Texas firm Schoenbaum, Curphy & Scanlan, P.C., described her client’s eye-opening experience with a fraudulent attempt to access her bank account. We asked…
JUNE 3, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 22 A delightful, intelligent and witty client of ours (nearly all our clients are delightful, intelligent and witty) visited her podiatrist’s office. Our client has always battled problems with her weight, so when an assistant insisted that she step onto an office scale she declined. I’m pretty sure, she…
MAY 27, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 21 Does anyone else remember reading “Rhubarb,” a 1946 novel by H. Allen Smith? The basic story: an eccentric millionaire leaves his entire fortune to a stray cat (the eponymous Rhubarb). Among the assets in the cat’s inheritance is a baseball team (the fictional New York Loons). Hilarity ensues.…
MAY 20, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 20 One of the reasons people create living trusts is to reduce the likelihood of disputes among family members. In fact, any well-written estate plan — whether it involves a living trust or not — should focus at least partly on that worthwhile goal. Most estates do get settled…
MAY 13, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 19 We read an interesting appellate court case this week involving an Indiana special needs trust. The court’s resolution of the case was actually not all that interesting — it was dismissed on technical grounds. But the story was an interesting one, and involved a problem that we see…
MAY 6, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 18 Last week we wrote about questions we often hear from our clients in the wake of big changes to the federal estate tax structure. Almost immediately we heard from a reader asking about portability and disclaimer trusts; our reader suggested we try to explain the two concepts and…
APRIL 29, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 17 You probably have read that Congress has made big changes to the estate tax system. More accurately, Congress has made “permanent” the big (but piecemeal and temporary) changes introduced over the past decade. We hear a lot of questions from our clients about what those changes mean. Here…