Most attorneys who handle guardianship aren’t board certified in elder law. The certification is rare for a reason — the Florida Bar makes it hard to get and hard to keep. Jill on what it actually requires: Florida has 27 board certification specialty areas. Elder law is one of them. To become certified, an attorney...
David Shulman
It used to be easy. When a client died, their personal representative went to the house, opened the file cabinet or the kitchen drawer, and found the statements. Bank accounts, brokerage accounts, life insurance, the timeshare, the credit cards. If something wasn’t in the drawer, it showed up in the mail over the next three...
You’ve been named personal representative of a Florida estate — the person the will (or the court) puts in charge. Here’s what the job actually involves, in the order it happens, and the two mistakes that create personal liability. Before you’re appointed Deposit the original will with the clerk of court — Florida requires this...
The most common probate question, and the one with the most disappointing answer. A Florida formal administration essentially never finishes in six weeks, no matter what anyone promised — and the reason is the law itself, not slow lawyers or slow courts. The timeline, phase by phase Getting appointed (weeks 1–6). Documents get gathered, the...
It’s usually the second question a family asks, right after “how long will this take.” Here’s the honest answer, including the part about the statutory fee schedule most websites bury. The statutory attorney-fee schedule Florida Statute §733.6171 sets a schedule of attorney’s fees that are “presumed reasonable” for ordinary services in a formal administration, based...
Florida gives you two main ways to probate an estate: formal administration and summary administration. Families almost always want the short one. Sometimes they’re right. Here’s how to tell. Summary administration: the short form Summary administration is available in two situations: the probate estate is worth $75,000 or less (not counting exempt property like the...
Most attorneys who handle elder law gravitate toward the planning side — Medicaid, special needs, asset protection. Jill went the other direction. Jill on why: Elder law is a broad category. It includes long-term care planning, public benefits, special needs trusts, advance directives, and the litigation side that we don’t do — Medicaid planning, VA...
Most “how I use AI” videos are some guy telling you to 10x your firm. This isn’t that. I had Episode 3 planned for a month, a slick walkthrough of my client intake with a made-up family and a fake estate. I hated it. So I scrapped it and made this instead: how I actually...