AUGUST 19, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 31 National Grandparents Day is September 8th this year. That should serve as a reminder for us to consider changing demographics: grandparents (and great-grandparents) are living longer, and increasingly fractured families are changing our expectations and default assumptions about caring for children. More grandchildren are being raised by their…
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AUGUST 12, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 30 Last week we saw a married couple in our office. The couple had come to us for estate planning. They did not have children with disabilities, or spendthrift sons-in-law or daughters-in-law. Their assets were not unusual (some Arizona real estate, a brokerage account, several bank accounts). Their net…
AUGUST 5, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 29 Ever signed a loved one into the nursing home? If so, you will recall the pile of forms you were handed. One probably authorized them to take pictures of your family member and use them in promotional material. Another authorized the facility to bill Medicare directly. Another ……
JULY 29, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 28 Judging from the questions and comments we get here, taxation of trusts is one of the most confusing issues we regularly write about. We’re going to try to collect the most important rules here for your convenience. Note that we will not try (in this summary) to touch…
We read about an interesting Washington case recently. Raven v. DSHS, a Washington Supreme Court decision handed down on July 18, 2013, indirectly dealt with a guardian’s duty to consider the known wishes of the subject of the guardianship. If the evidence is clear that the ward would not want to be institutionalized, for instance,…
JULY 22, 2013 VOLUME 20 NUMBER 27 We often find ourselves reassuring clients that the law makes sense. It may not be obvious or intuitive, but we can usually explain why some legal principle developed the way it did, and why it would be a bad thing if it were otherwise — even if that…
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…