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As parents, we're hardwired to prioritize our children's well-being above all else. We work tirelessly to provide for them, nurture them, and ensure they have every opportunity to thrive. Yet, amidst the hustle and bustle of daily life, it's easy to overlook a crucial aspect of their future: what happens to them if we're no longer here to care for them?

It's a sobering thought, but one that deserves your attention. You may assume that in the event of your untimely passing, your children will automatically be cared for and inherit your assets. However, the reality is far more complex and potentially unsettling.

Let's unpack why relying on these assumptions could leave your children's future in uncertain hands.

The Myth of Automatic Care

Yes, it's true that your children will inherit your assets upon your passing (if there is not a surviving spouse in most cases). However, without advance planning, the management of those assets will fall into the hands of a court-appointed trustee....

If you are a parent with children under the age of 18 at home, your number-one estate planning priority should be selecting and legally documenting both long and short-term guardians for your kids. Guardians are the people legally named to care for your children in the event something happens to you.

And if you’ve named guardians for your children in your will—even with the help of another lawyer—your kids could still be at risk of being taken into the care of strangers! 

One of the most disturbing aspects of this situation is that you probably have no idea just how vulnerable your kids are, since this is a blind spot inherent to the estate plan of countless parents around the world. Even many lawyers aren’t fully aware of this issue—and that’s because most lawyers simply don’t understand what’s necessary for planning and ensuring the well-being and care of minor children.

Why? Well, most estate planning over...

As we head into the third year of the pandemic, we are coming to terms with just how fragile our lives and health really are. If you haven’t gotten sick yourself, it’s almost certain you know someone who has, and many of us even know of one or more individuals who have died in the past two years. 

Although serious illness and death are something we are always at risk for—and should plan for—the pandemic has forced many of us to face our own mortality like no other event in recent memory. Some of those worst-case scenarios we thought would never happen now seem much more likely, and for some people, those unthinkable situations have even become reality.

Understanding The Risks

Yet even if you manage to avoid becoming sick right now, the fact remains that we are all vulnerable to serious illness or injury, regardless of how young or healthy you are. And if you are a parent, one of the most frightening aspects of that reality is knowing that should...

The pandemic is causing us to consider a lot of things that we may not have before, even if maybe we should have. Especially as it continues to linger and worsen and spike. 

It brings to mind something a colleague of mine shared a while back. One unremarkable weekend, she left her small children with a babysitter and headed out to enjoy dinner at a restaurant with her husband. But as she sat there, a thought crept into her head that she couldn’t let go.

What would happen to her kids, she thought, if she and her husband got into a car accident on the way home? If you have talked with me for any length of time, I have probably shared this story with you. It was a conversation with this particular colleague that changed my entire perspective on my estate planning practice.  It also made me feel I had failed to truly plan for my own kids. 

And even though my colleague is an estate planning lawyer herself, and she had a will at home naming guardians for...

If you have minor children and have not yet selected a guardian, you are not unlike many parents who put off this critically important task while waiting for the perfect solution to present itself. 

Or perhaps you and your spouse/partner cannot agree on who would be the ideal guardian for your kids...

Here is your solution:  Done is better than perfect. Especially here.

If you do nothing, the decision about who would raise your children (if something were to happen to you) would be left up to a judge to decide.  A judge who doesn’t know you, doesn’t know what’s important to you, and doesn’t know your children, will make all the decisions about who cares for the people who are most important to you in the world.

I know that’s not what you want.

And, truth is… there may never be a perfect solution for you, but there is definitely a solution that is better than your children being raised by someone you didn’t choose. 

...

The Legal Planning You Need to Do for Your High School Graduate

If you’re the parent of a high school graduate this year, congratulations!  You’ve put in a lot of time and effort toward their earning that diploma, and whatever their next step in life will be, you likely want to protect them just as much as you did while they were still in high school.

But before you pack that kid off to college or just an apartment across town, you need to know that when they leave, they will be taking some of the legal rights you had before they turned 18 with them. 

Once a child turns 18, they are no longer considered a child in the eyes of the law.  And you no longer have the legal right to access their health care, school, or banking records without their permission.  Here are some steps you should take before your child leaves the nest that will help ensure your peace of mind and their safety:

Create an advance healthcare directive.  Once your child is...