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The story was secondhand, told to me by my husband. Overseeing the nightly bath vs. shower ritual of our children, ages 6 and 4, he was the parent on-duty.  It had been a long day of Spring Break play, inevitable growth spurts, and the competitive behavior of siblings.  Quickly the kids launched into an argument over who was going to use their shower/bath first: Daughter: I said it first, I get a bath....NOW!!!! Son: Not fair!  You take fooooooorrrrrrrevvvvvvver in the bath.  I want a quick shower! Daughter: [with a smirk spreading across her face], I know, let's do a coin toss!  For the reader, she has an uncanny ability to win these games of chance, something that has not gone unnoticed by our son. Son; Okay [said with a bit of distrust]. Up went the coin, supplied by dad.  It landed heads up, just as our daughter had predicted. Son: Fine, take your God Damn bath! He stomped off to our master bath for a shower on his own. At this point in ...

Over the past year I have grown accustomed to flipping through the mail at home and seeing at least one mailing addressed to my mother, at our home address rather than the 1121 Valley Stream Drive of my childhood.  She, my mother, left this earthly world February 16th of 2014, but her junk mail lives on.  Most of the time I mark the enveloped "deceased", leaving it for the carrier to cart off the next day, hoping the life insurance company or peddler of products to keep seniors in their homes will update their mailing lifts.  Sharon no longer needs their services. And then one day a mailing caught my attention, it was from a huge on-line bank.  Tearing it open the warning I issue to clients here in my legal office struck home - identity theft of the dead.   Sharon -- Welcome to [insert Bank Name here]!  Here are the account numbers for your new 29 savings accounts!   A whirlwind of emotions ensued.  Sadness for a mother who was gone from my li...

Somehow I held back the tears, the ones brimming in my eyes, sobs wanting to escape my throat. Somehow I held back, somehow I keep calling -- can you help me find a home for The Boys?  It was January 2014, what locals here in Wisconsin will remember as Polar Vortex season, and my mother was dying.  What would happen to The Boys, her kitty cats?  With three cats of our own, two of which were seniors, plus two young children and a dual self-employed couple -- our home was not a viable option. Sitting in my car, with illumination from the lamp post in the parking lot of the building I was scheduled to speak at in less than 30 minutes. Channeling my estate planning attorney self, quieting the daughter inside, I kept calling.   Our local shelter, a local feral cat rescue, our family vet.  The answer over and over, sorry we cannot help. It was my family vet that told me, ever so gently, that if The Boys went to our county animal rescue they would likely ...

So, you’re telling me I am better off just managing this Goat Rodeo?   A rhetorical question posed by a client some months ago in follow-up to our one hour discussion about the ins and outs of the 1986 trust the client's parents had created.   Yes, that is one way to put it. This may go down as my most humorous and enjoyable client meeting of 2014. Goat Rodeo -- what a perfect way to summarize the state of affairs. If you are an adult child, chances are one day you may manage the "Goat Rodeo" of your parents’ estate.  There may be a trust, a will, nothing at all.  Documents may have been written 25 years earlier, designed and mandated to follow outdated tax codes.  No will?  No worries, a distribution plan is embedded in the state statutes where your parents lived/died.  You will quickly learns the ins and outs of this plan.  If you have sibling, prepare yourself for a flash back to the fights you had as tweens (was that even a word when you...

It never fails.  New clients walk into my office and sit down for our first meeting of the estate planning process.  Once the initial hellos are finished and the legal services agreement reviewed and signed, we get down to business.  Nine times out of ten I hear "oh, this will be simple, we are a solid middle class family." Instantly this Shaker song pops into my mind (one I adore and delight in signing at our UU church). The song makes me smile, such a happy little ditty.  The client(s) is smiling, thinking this will be simple because they do not have tons of assets, just the normal amount of a normal person or couple here in the heart of the Midwest. A glance at their questionnaire and the tune fades from my mind, replaced by something for chaotic. Something more ominous.  Something that is anything but simple. Something along these lines: Why the change in background music?  It's simple really.  Money is not what makes estate planning co...

Without fail, every week or so a client will give me the look.  Akin to Gary Coleman on Different Strokes, what I call "the Wathcha' Talkin' About Willis? face.  You remember, this one: Behind the look is an air of confusion, annoyance and frustration.  These are the type of conversations that place unfavorable adjectives in front of the title lawyer.  Case in point: Client: My wife died on Sunday, her sister died Thursday, so my wife outlived her and is the beneficiary of the sister's IRA. Attorney: Well, your wife died after her sister, but she may not have actually survived her, it depends. Client: [intent pause, brow wrinkles, and they are clearly holding back the statement -- now I thought you were suppose to be smart, you went to law school, and now your tellin' me that my wife did not survive her sister, come on, pay attention] -- what? is the question they toss my way. Attorney: In the world of estate planning we have a concept called survivor...

"Are you kidding me, it's in the Bible......follow the dying person's last wish!"   It is not often that my husband invokes the Bible, he is an atheist after all.  But when he does, he is serious, and he is expressing the fact something is ancient.  Not just some new trendy idea -- it dates back to biblical times. We had been discussing the fallout of my mother's memorial service. Yes, such an event can have fallout. And from my vantage point of an estate planning and probate attorney, I can tell you that it happens more often than not.  But here I was, the daughter, not the attorney, in the mini-drama surrounding her final wishes. Thankfully that legal education of mine fortified my backbone, allowing me to stand tall and carry out her wishes, despite the descent of her grieving relatives. With no uncertain terms, she had clearly expressed her wishes to me from the passenger seat of my Honda Civic.  Sick for many years, we often found ourselves wi...