An exciting appearance on the NSU Florida podcast entitled Pulse! Health Law Society by Pulse Health features Senior Partner Jill Ginsberg. In this second installment of Pulse! Health Law Society’s three-part series on Elder Law: Senior Care, we sit down with Jill R. Ginsberg to discuss her practice and experiences as a Florida Board-Certified Elder… Read More
Washington Post Article on Sam Huff has Good Advice for Planning for Dementia
A few days ago, Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins wrote a column about former NFL Linebacker Sam Huff. Huff, who had a long and successful career after the NFL, was diagnosed with dementia in 2012. According to the column, “Huff made what he thought were sound legal preparations and … then one day in March,… Read More
Florida Supreme Court Adopts Amendments to Guardianship Accounting Rules
On September 1, 2016, the Florida Supreme Court approved changes to the Probate Rules. The Probate Rules include both Probate and Guardianship. While there were multiple changes to throughout (many being minor), in this post I am going to focus on a major change to the Guardianship Accounting rules. What is a Guardianship In (very)… Read More
Britney Spears’s Conservatorship (Guardianship) Is Still in Place
It’s an awful thing when you are unable to manage your own affairs. Usually, it happens to the very elderly. Due to senile dementia, Alzheimers, or other diseases, they can not manage their own finances, or make informed decisions about their health care. If you have proper estate planning in place, a durable power of… Read More
Update: Harper Lee is ‘happy as hell’ about new book, say same people suspected of exploiting her.
Yesterday, I wrote about how I was suspicious about Harper Lee’s decision to publish her new novel. I wrote that she was blind, deaf, and probably mentally incapacitated. Everything that’s ever been written about her for the past 50 years has said that she never wanted to publish a second novel because there was nowhere… Read More
Harper Lee to publish “new” novel. But does she have capacity?
The literary world was all atwitter yesterday with news that Harper Lee, the reclusive author of To Kill A Mockingbird, will be publishing a new novel later this year. In fact, the novel isn’t “new” but was written before To Kill A Mockingbird, and has been hidden away for all these years. The novel, Go… Read More
Who gets paid if an Alleged Incapacitated Person dies before the hearing? Nobody?
The Guardianship of Mary Klatthaar I’m sure there are some independently wealthy attorneys out there who take all of their cases pro bono. Most of us though are hard-working schlubs like everyone else who while we love what we do, need to pay the bills too. When we work there is some hope or expectation of… Read More
Searle v. Bent: Court can rely on verified statement vs. less restrictive alternative to a guardianship
Incapacity planning can prevent a guardianship. Although I often write about estate planning and taxes, an essential part of our practice also concerns Guardianships. A court will appoint a Guardian of a person if the court determines them to be incapacitated, or “judicially determined to lack the capacity to manage at least some of the… Read More
Fintak v. Fintak: Renunciation of Trust Benefits not Required Before Settlor Can Challenge its Validity.
In the recent case of Fintak v. Fintak, (No 2D12-3407 2nd DCA, August 23, 2013), the Second District Court of Appeals issued a ruling which excited legal nerds (like me) by discussing the Renunciation Rule as applied to self-settled trusts. It’s a technical case with some convoluted facts, but if you bear with me, I think it’s fairly… Read More