You walked out of the courthouse with letters of guardianship signed by a judge. The bank told you they won’t honor them. This happens constantly, and the fix is not a better phone number. In this episode, my partner Jill Ginsberg walks through what happens when financial institutions stonewall a guardian, personal representative, or agent...
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...
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...
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 $150,000 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, guardianship, and related litigation. Within that broad category, guardianship is its own...
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...