Dear Clients, Colleagues, and Friends, We often hear fatalistic comments about long-term care and the cost of nursing homes. When clients (or their adult children) are writing checks for eight to fifteen thousand dollars a month, it may feel like nothing can be done to preserve assets. But with proper planning, hundreds of thousands of […]
Dear Clients, Colleagues, and Friends, If you’re a small business owner, you’ll benefit from attending the Business Fundamentals Bootcamp on February 13th at the Crowne Plaza in Nashua, New Hampshire. This year, the program includes twenty speakers (lawyers, CPAs, insurance and HR professionals, etc.) from the area, leading sessions on marketing, finance, law, and human […]
Dear Clients, Colleagues, and Friends, A trust isn’t necessary for everyone. But the majority of us have heirs who might not be ready to handle an inheritance. In many cases, a trust is an ideal vehicle to manage those assets – and it’s less expensive than you think to set one up. Here are three […]
Dear Clients, Colleagues, and Friends, Sometimes I hear people say, “I don’t need to worry about estate planning – I have my will all drawn up.” I’d much rather see you have a will than no plan at all. But a will-based plan is ideal for only a small number of people. Here are the […]
Dear Clients, Colleagues and Friends, You’ve worked hard. You’ve saved. You’ve thought about insurance and investments carefully, so you will have enough to retire on and to leave something to your kids. Then it happens: you, or your spouse, lose your mental ability to make financial or medical decisions, or one of you dies, and […]
Dear Clients, Colleagues and Friends, Everyone with young children should have a revocable trust as the core of their estate plan. When tragedy strikes and takes one or both parents, a trust provides a legal vessel to hold the assets that will provide for those children, and puts them in the hands of a competent […]
Dear Clients, Colleagues and Friends, A new client recently asked me, somewhat sheepishly, what I thought of LegalZoom. I told him that internet form companies like LegalZoom, RocketLawyer, and Quicken WillMaker are great tools – in the hands of a professional. In the hands of a layperson, they are very dangerous. Form legal documents are […]
Dear Clients, Colleagues and Friends, Our office is working with a client who has worked with her hands all her life. Her last parent died recently after expressing the desire to leave her entire estate, in the high six figures, to our client. The other two children, a wealthy sibling and one with an addiction, […]
Dear Clients, Colleagues and Friends, An older lady came to my office last week accompanied by two of her adult children. Her husband was admitted to a nursing home last fall, and she had been “spending down” their retirement funds at a rate of about $10,000 per month for the past six months. She (and […]
Dear Clients, Colleagues and Friends, Our office is working with two different clients whose parents set up trusts before they passed away. The parents named either siblings or a nephew as trustee of their estate-planning trusts. Now, those relatives are trying to cut our clients out of the inheritance that their parents intended when […]