I am the Chairman of the Litigation Committee of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, commonly known as NAELA. NAELA has approximately 4,500...
Eldercare Lawyer Blog
The Intersection of Government Benefits
A recent decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit sheds light on a very interesting issue concerning the intersection of...
New Jersey Estate Tax Update
There has been a lot of talk in the halls of the New Jersey Legislature about repealing or modifying the New Jersey estate tax. New Jersey is one...
The Caregiver Child
A recent decision of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, highlights an interesting issue affecting New Jersey’s Medicaid program. ...
Is Medicaid Planning Illegal?
Is it illegal to give advice to a person about how best to qualify for Medicaid benefits? It depends. If the person giving the advice is not a...
Do I Recommend Long-Term Care Insurance?
Do I recommend that my clients purchase long-term care insurance? It’s a question that I am often asked. My answer is always the same: I recommend...
Executor’s Duty To Account
When an individual dies, someone has to be appointed to handle the affairs of his estate. If a person dies with a last will and testament, then the...
How Old Is Too Old?
Clients often ask me how often then should update their estate planning documents. The common estate planning documents are a last will and...
The Dangers of Dynasty Trusts
Many estate planning attorneys tout the advantages of a “dynasty trust.” There are several benefits that are commonly mentioned when these trusts...
Do I Need A Revocable Living Trust?
I often have clients ask me if they should have a revocable living trust as part of their estate plan. A trust is a fiduciary relationship through...
What a Will Can — and Cannot — Do
Most people have a general idea of what a last will and testament is—a document that says who-gets-what from the estate of a decedent. Historically,...
A Holistic Approach to Long-Term Care
In my opinion, it’s important for a lawyer to specialize in a given field. When a client asks me about another area of the law (such as family law...
The Best Advice Money Can Buy
I think one of the biggest sources of trepidation that people have in seeing a lawyer is the perception that attorneys are expensive. When a family...
A Spendthrift Clause Can Protect More Than You Think
Last week, I wrote about the adoption of the Uniform Trust Code in New Jersey. I believe that New Jersey’s adaptation of this uniform law will be...
Uniform Trust Code
This past week the New Jersey Legislature passed and the Governor signed into law the Uniform Trust Code. The Uniform Trust Code, or UTC, is a...
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Recent Posts
Two-Pronged Attack
The state of New Jersey is at war with lawyers who engage in the practice of Medicaid planning. Medicaid is a medical assistance program for needy individuals. Unlike private health insurance programs, however, Medicaid will pay for the costs of long-term care, such...
Paving the Way To Federal Court
The other week, a federal judge made a ruling in one of the federal cases that I filed, paving the way for that lawsuit to proceed against the State and for many future federal lawsuits. The Medicaid Act is a federal law, so if a State fails to implement the law...
Making Your Federal Case
Those of you who read my column regularly (and I have to tell you, there are many of you) know that I have been engaged in a series of lawsuits against the state of New Jersey on various issues affecting the Medicaid program. For the most part, I have been rather...
Disability Planning 101
I read that 55% of people die without a last will and testament. That statistic doesn't surprise me at all. I think Wills are the subject of much procrastination or fear or both. People say I'll get a Will, then put it off and forget about it. Some people associate a...
The New Federal Estate and Gift Tax
In mid-December 2010, Congress passed and the President signed into law the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010 (the "Tax Act"). The Tax Act makes some interesting modifications to the laws governing the federal estate and...
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