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+Lessons From Fisk: Family Fights and the Role of Wills By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi December 29, 2023 The final episode of Season One of the Australian comedy Fisk has two parallel storylines.  One storyline features two men who, may or may not, be brothers.  Their confrontation in the law offices of Gruber & Associates ends with fisticuffs in the waiting area.  The second storyline involves an elderly man seeking to write a will.  His intent is to be prescriptive and thus avoid fighting after his death.  Helen grabs her pen and paper to begin taking notes and chuckles a bit when the man says "let's start with the fitted sheet sets".  He was not joking. The client painstakingly created the most detailed list of the contents of his home.  Listing each item and stated who should inherit. The take-away from this final episode of season one of Fisk is that a well thought-out will may prevent or reduce family fighting that can occur in the wake of a ...

Lessons From Fisk: Finding an Estate Planning Attorney You Want to Work With By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi December 22, 2023 Episode Five, Season One, of the Australian comedy Fisk pushes Helen beyond the paperwork of being an associate and into the work of client development. In the opening scene, Roz Gruber shoos Helen away from the conference table saying "Helen, why don't you go and work on bringing in some new business?" As the episode unfolds, Helen keeps her eyes open for the middle-aged people squabbling over an inheritance, which were described as the ideal client by Office Manager Roz Gruber (who is temporarily suspended from practicing law for unknown reasons). It's at the book club hosted by her Aunt and Uncle, with whom she is couch surfing, where Helen finds her first client with a squabble over a will. She ends up passing out business cards to the outstretched hands of the book club members.   My take-away for you from this episode are the following ways...

Lessons From Fisk: Hoarding, Tech and the Post-It Note is Your Friend By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi December 15, 2023 Episode Four of Season One of the Australian comedy Fisk is filled to the brim the take-aways.  First, there is a plot line about addressing the post-death cleanup of a hoarder (or "rubbish bin challenged individual as coined by Ray Gruber).  When the executor of the estate is not coping well with the clean-up, Gruber & Gruber brings in a temp worker to lend a hand.  The take-away here, purge what you can now in life to make handling your final affairs easier on your loved ones.  Also, if you are find yourself in the role of cleaning up the final affairs for someone who did not get this message, remember, you can outsource some of these tasks.   Second, Helen when faced with the possibly of having to argue in court, turns to her father for help.  Helen's father, Anthony Fisk, is a retired Australian Supreme Court Justice.  Along...

Lessons From Fisk: Powers of Attorney, Elderly Parents, and Well-Meaning Adult Children By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi December 8, 2023 Episode three, Season One of the Australian comedy Fisk introduces Helen to return clients of Gruber & Gruber, the Popovitch mother and daughter duo.  Launched with comedic style, in this episode the new associate finds herself in a common situation: the adult child of a elderly parent with memory issues seeks power of attorney over the mother's finances.  Gruber & Gruber handle the situation far differently than I would in my office, likely because they are in a different country and the story is written for entertainment value. Laws related to creating powers of attorney are written by state legislatures, meaning the laws and regulations vary from state to state.  Under Wisconsin law our statutes state : 244.05  Execution of power of attorney. To execute a power of attorney the principal must sign the power of attorney or another ...

Lessons From Fisk: Do Not Include Burial Instructions in Your Will By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi December 1, 2023 The second episode in Season 1 of the Australian ABC show Fisk   finds Helen in the middle of negotiations over the clause in a will that states the decedent's cremains shall be divided between his family and his much, much younger girlfriend.  The quirky factor is turned up high in this episode. I want to avoid ever having to run a ratio analysis of the time a decedent spent with family members to calculate the percentage of ashes each party shall receive, as Helen did in the episode. Here are a few other reasons I avoid addressing funeral instructions in a will: In Wisconsin, the authority allowing an agent to make health care decisions for another person ends when the person who wrote the document dies; Wisconsin has a free, fill-in-law blank form called the Authorization for Final Disposition which allows a person to name a first person, back-up, and second bac...

Lessons From Fisk: Limits on Testamentary Freedom By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi November 24, 2024 There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor. ― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol Seeking a dose of laughter to offset the heaviness of world news and the increasingly shorter days of sunlight?  If you have Netflix, you may enjoy the Australian ABC comedy that first aired in March of 2021, Fisk .  Starring Kitty Flanagan as Helen Fisk, it is a witty comedy set in the law office of Gruber & Gruber, a small (shabby) suburban office that focuses on estate planning and probate.  Recently I laughed my way through all six episodes of Season One.  I enjoyed them so much that I rewatched them with my husband.  With hyperbolic scenarios, the show explores accurate aspects of my everyday work life.  Today, and for the remainder of the calendar year, my weekly blog post will examine each episode and a take-away for the viewer se...

How to Get Your Elderly Parents Talking About End-of-Life Issues - Use a Book to Spark Conversation By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi November 17, 2023 "Seriously Mom, maybe you could try read something a little less depressing.  What is this?" Wisecracked my 13 year old daughter as she passed my home desk one evening.   "Oh, that.  It's a book I've read already.  Gail gave it to me as sort of a gag 50th birthday gift.  Gail's sort of doing Swedish Death Cleaning and thought I'd be a good place to re-home the book." Image by M. Gustafson Gervasi, the author's 50th ice cream birthday cake The book is the graphic novel, a memoir technically, by Roz Chast, titled Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant .  Released in 2014 it was a National Book Award Finalist, and it may be just the thing to take with you when you go home for the Thanksgiving Holiday or if you are hosting this year, set it out on the coffee table.  The book caught the curiosity...