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Jul 02, 2010
Recently, at two different MCLE (continuing legal education) presentations, I spoke on the “Elder Law Essentials.” The goal of the presentation was to distinguish the solutions of elder law vs. the solutions underlying traditional estate planning.
I was originally trained as a tax attorney, and my principal estate planning solutions were motivated by the client’s desires to:
As an elder law attorney, however, the usual client motivation is the diagnosis of a long term illness. This is illustrated by the life-changing call I received at my office almost ten years ago. A family friend called me and she asked, “Rick, what are we going to do? Bob has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Am I going to lose my home? Are we going to lose EVERYTHING?” There was panic in her voice.
In those days, I was not prepared to give appropriate answers. I was a traditional estate planner—and she was not asking for a traditional solution. She was asking me for answers to these questions:
When someone asks these type of questions, elder law has the answers. Our goal is to work with our clients to try to assist them to protect their income, obtain quality health care, and protect the marital residence for the healthy spouse.
If a traditional estate plan is not the right fit, please call us to discuss how we may be able to help you.
Rick Law
“We would be lost without Law Elder Law! We walked in their doors over a year ago feeling lost and confused. With a father/father-in-law suffering from Alzheimer’s, we were overwhelmed by the Medicaid process, selling his home, protecting the assets he worked for his entire life, and finding him a memory-care facility that we could trust as his new home.
Law Elder Law helped with all of it! From the minute we walked out of our first meeting, we knew we (and he) were in good hands. We could not have possibly navigated all that had to be done without their expertise.”
A.M., Client of Law Hesselbaum and Law Elder Law