My Practice
Proper planning will let you choose you want your legacy to go or whom you want to manage your estate or care for you if you are to become incapacitated or suddenly pass away. Many of these issues are easy to plan for in advance through estate planning documents, but hard to deal with after the fact if you do not have them done before problems occur. Having the right documents in place will avoid many of the pitfalls in aging, death or incapacity or will drastically reduce their difficulty for those that will need to support you. I work to make sure that clients have the right documents that fit your current life, budget, and family needs.
The court process of at the end of a person's life for paying off all debts and giving out the remaining possessions according to a will or statute. It can be both expensive and complicated to get through. I help guide the Personal Representative of the estate through the process and work to get the estate closed and distributed as efficiently and effectively as possible.
Medicare does not pay for long term care past a short stay, and many people do not have enough money to pay for all of the long-term care they will need in their lifetime. While Medicaid does cover long-term care, it has a complicated set of requirements to qualify that is hard to navigate without a knowledgeable attorney. Planning on how to qualify for Medicaid is large amount of work and often needs to be done well in advance of when a person needs the services. I help clients and their families develop a Medicaid qualification plan and help them navigate through the process.
When a family member or friend begins to decline to the point where he or she can no longer properly take care of his or herself, it's a good idea to explore the possibility of a guardianship or conservatorship. This court process sets up someone as the official caretaker of the individual in need of help, and lets them legally stand in for the person for financial and caretaking decisions. I help clients prepare the correct court documents to start the court case, guide them through the process, and advise them as guardian or conservators.