FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Denise Hash Chief Operating Officer [email protected] (877) 299-0326 ext. 5445 September 11, 2017 Headline: Matt Donald joins Lawyers With Purpose as Director of VA Services Copy: NEW HARTFORD, NY — Attorney Matt Donald has been named Director of VA Services at Lawyers With Purpose. Donald will... Continue reading

Special needs trusts are an important tool in an elder care attorney’s toolbox. Established correctly, SNTs allow a person to qualify for public benefits such as Medicaid or SSI while maintaining assets in a trust to supplement the funds provided by such programs. First-party SNTs are established with funds that... Continue reading

Did you know successful law practice comes down to knowing your primary colors? I've had the privilege of working with estate planning lawyers across America since 2000. One of the biggest struggles I find with attorneys is their understanding of how to run their law practice like a business. Many... Continue reading

As a lawyer practicing in the elder law and estate planning industry for 25 years, I'm always intrigued by what lawyers refer to as remarriage protections. Remarriage protection relates to the provisions that one puts in a trust to ensure after a spouse dies and a surviving spouse remarries (or... Continue reading

Unknown to most of us, Gene Wilder suffered from Alzheimer’s disease during his final years. Mr. Wilder decided early in his diagnosis not to disclose his medical condition to the world. His family quietly dealt with the pain of caregiving and memory loss in a quiet and secluded way. After... Continue reading

There's a great buzzword out there in estate planning called planning for “blended families.” The term “blended families” represents individuals who are married but have previous marriages or relationships that resulted in children. One example would be a second marriage in which the husband and wife have children from a... Continue reading

Well, here we go again. On July 12, a New Hampshire Trial Court ruled that an irrevocable trust was an available resource. Or did it? A careful examination of the Braiterman case really comes down to three issues. The first was an imaginary stretching of the "any circumstances" provision in... Continue reading

I've been working with estate planning attorneys around the United States for almost 20 years, and I am always intrigued about how excited they get when they deliver a presentation, seminar or workshop. The interesting dynamic is how pumped they get in front of a room full of people. It... Continue reading

As many of us are aware, the federal guidelines allow Medicaid applicants to transfer their home to a child caregiver without suffering a Medicaid penalty for the transfer. It is a transfer often attempted by families in the Medicaid application process. It is also a transfer that often fails to... Continue reading

Those of you who know me well, know that I am an avid University of Georgia fan (or perhaps fanatic). I arrive at football games at 6 a.m. to set up my tent. I will stand in the 100-degree sun, downpours, 90,000-person adversarial crowds and whatever else is thrown at... Continue reading

“We have received information showing that because of your disabilities you may need help handling your Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits.” That is how the letter usually begins. A claimant may receive this letter after benefit approval, when the VA proposes a rating of incompetency, which usually means a... Continue reading

Patient eviction is a growing problem in our country. Between 2000 and 2014, national Ombudsman programs report that eviction complaints are up 57 percent, despite the number of nursing home patients being slightly down. And the correlation between the growth of dementia and the eviction of patients seems clear. Knowing our state discharge procedures, appellate rights and care requirements is essential to us as elder care attorneys. Our understanding of patient rights and legal protections, along with a phone call to a facility, can often go further than anything a family can do. Continue reading

An individual entered the nursing home with no pre-plan. The daughter, the power of attorney, contacted Mike Goss’s office for a plan. As he has successfully done many times in the past, Mike created an asset protection plan for the new nursing home resident using an MIT trust. The penalty... Continue reading

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day is certainly one we all wish did not require special attention on our calendars. Unfortunately, it does. Every year an estimated 5 million older Americans are victims of elder abuse, neglect, or exploitation. And that’s only part of the picture: Experts believe that for every... Continue reading

Lawyers with Purpose is getting ready for some exciting changes in our legal technical training. Over the past several months, as my calendar has been freed up to provide one-on-one legal training and file reviews with members, case-specific questions for the Live Case Study review have slowly faded. As such, we are restructuring the Monday afternoon hour to continue to provide members with the most efficient use of your time and the time of your staff. Moving forward, while we will continue to address all questions that are submitted by 5 p.m. Friday on the following Monday, we will be using a large portion of the legal technical hour as an in-depth study of the Lawyers with Purpose system and the many uses of the LWP Client Centered Software. Continue reading

Many lawyers proclaim to have remarriage protection in their estate planning documents, but few are worthy of this claim. For most lawyers, having remarriage protection means removing a spouse’s right to benefit from a trust in the event the spouse remarries. Although this is a good start, it is wholly... Continue reading

I was young when Granny T died. Granny T loved grilled cheese sandwiches, she loved porch swings, and she gave us grandkids MadLibs at Christmas. Granny T told me one time that she was the valedictorian of her high school class and that I was smart, just like her. Granny... Continue reading

As the Lawyers with Purpose attorney trainer, I am often asked by transitioning attorneys or new members how I can justify helping people shelter money so that they could possibly one day receive Medicaid benefits, while still having funds available in trust. I often think as I respond, how could... Continue reading

Doves do not cry. Crying as an expression of pain or emotion is a mammalian trait. I know this to be true because on a 6th grade trip to the zoo, dressed in my finest purple, I asked the zoologist. So I am confident in stating that if you owned... Continue reading

We as attorneys, and sometimes even our clients, hear so much about trust funding, but rarely is it truly understood. I would like to outline a few essentials when doing trust funding to ensure that the underlying estate plan works as intended. The first key step in any trust funding... Continue reading

Over the last 25 years of dealing with the buying and selling of small businesses, I have become accustomed to lawyers and clients believing that creating an LLC or a corporation is the best way to protect their assets. While this is an effective start, creating an LLC or a... Continue reading

Many people commonly use Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts (ILIT) to ensure that life insurance owned by an individual is not included in their taxable estate at death. While an ILIT is a useful trust, you could accomplish far more with a TAP™ trust. So let's review an ILIT and distinguish... Continue reading

Special Needs Trusts are often created with funds received from legal settlements or inheritances. Special Needs Trusts are important documents when established for people who are receiving government benefits. However, as practitioners we must remember that a Special Needs Trust must not only be effectively drafted for those receiving public... Continue reading

The recent Pfannenstiehl v. Pfannenstiehl case in Massachusetts is a pretty good indication that the use of ascertainable standards in asset protection planning is dangerous. While this may be news to you, the Lawyers with Purpose legal community has known this for some time and has changed its recommended planning... Continue reading

Personal service agreements, or personal care agreements, are typically agreements between a family member providing care and another needing care. These agreements act as a legal contract between the two parties regarding the range of care one party is providing to the other. As a Medicaid and/or VA planning tool,... Continue reading