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A Primer on Guardianships – Part Six – Due Process and Guardianship
People are often surprised when they find out that guardianships are contested legal matters. They assume that they just need to fill out a form and they will be appointed by the Court to serve as guardian for their parent or child because that person ...
A Primer on Guardianships – Part Five – Less Restrictive Alternatives
The Petition for Guardianship is the document whereby a client (through her attorney) requests that the court appoint someone as guardian. Among other basic informational items, the Petition will need to include a description of less restrictive alternatives to guardianship that have been attempted and ...
“For reasons which are known to them” – Disinheriting a Child
The decision to disinherit a child is generally not made lightly and neither should be the approach to planning. Careful consideration as to why a parent wishes to exclude a child from her estate planning is necessary prior to preparing the documents. There may be ...
A Primer on Guardianships – Part Four – Understanding Incapacity
Clients often talk to us about whether someone is competent to execute legal documents such as a will or a power of attorney (POA). Talk of competency is generally putting the cart before the horse. Competency is a legal term, but it has to do ...
“Waiting In Vain” For Your Estate Plan
As a high school student in Sussex County, Delaware, I remember career day where an attorney came in to my classroom and explained what he did for a living. I was 14, maybe 15, and had no idea what a Last Will, an estate, or ...
Courtroom Lawyers and Conference Room Attorneys
Here in the Information Age we have all the information in the world at our fingertips. You can go on WebMD to search symptoms of an illness before talking to a doctor, Zillow to shop houses before you talk to a Realtor, and to a ...
What are Trusts? Main Trust Principles
A trust is, “[a]n equitable or beneficial right or title to land or other property, held for the beneficiary by another person, in whom resides the legal title or ownership, recognized and enforced by courts of chancery.”[1] It is worth noting that Maryland does not ...
Investing in Family
Throughout the years, we are constantly taught, admonished, reminded that we must invest. We must invest in our education by focusing on our studies or by taking student loans to complete our degree so that we can increase our earning potential and job satisfaction. We ...
A Primer on Guardianships – Part Three – Guardianship of the Property
From one broad perspective, a person can be understood to have control over two sets of decisions in their lives: decisions affecting their person and decisions affecting their property. These are commonly reduced to healthcare and personal decisions (e.g., what medical treatment I receive or ...
A Primer on Guardianships – Part Two – Guardianship of the Person
Many times clients will come for an appointment with an elder law attorney because their spouse or parent is no longer able to communicate decisions about their health or person. This can be the result of a progressive condition such as Alzheimer’s disease, or from ...
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