2010

The Maryland State Bar Association highly encourages attorneys to make their legal services available to individual who cannot afford legal assistance or to help non-profit organizations in achieving their purpose.   Here are some of the activities I have been involved in during the past year. Wills for Heroes: This program involved preparation of simple wills, [...]

You can easily write your own will, power of attorney, medical power of attorney, and living will using an on-line package.  Most of the software packages do a pretty good job for the “I love you wills” giving everything to your spouse, then to your children.  The software replicates what most general practice attorneys can [...]

Estate planning is not just for retirees.  Summer is a busy time in the office for completing wills of young parents.  Planning a summer vacation forces parents to think about who would look after their children if they both perished in an airplane or car accident. The first step of the will is to name [...]

This year’s temporary repeal of the Federal Estate Tax has created a new set of problems for those inheriting appreciated assets.  Amy Feldman details these problems in her article “Trouble For Heirs” found in the April 25, 2010 issue of Bloomberg Businessweek.  There is no Federal Estate Tax in 2010, but stepped-up basis of assets [...]

I recently spent the afternoon with an elderly woman planning how to distribute her large real estate holdings fairly upon her death.  I asked her how she had accumulated all that property.  She said that her husband had died at fairly young age leaving her with life insurance proceeds.  She used that money to pay [...]

Boris Veysman wrote an interesting article on Do Not Resuscitate orders from a Physician’s viewpoint that was published in the Washington Post.   A physician or nurse practitioner must sign a DNR order. Maryland Emergency Medical Services explains the effect of the order and you can download a form from their website.   Do Not Resuscitate Orders are [...]

Would your personal representative be able to track down all your bank accounts and pay all your bills that are setup for web access? Could your family recover pictures and videos that you have stored with services such as Picasa or Flickr? Dan Rosenwald at the Washington Post ran interesting article on digital data and [...]

The November issue of Money Magazine published an article “Marrying Finances – For the Second Time.”  Karen Cheney points out tree instances “When a Prenup makes Sense: … have a family business. … have vastly more savings than your spouse. … have kids from a previous marriage.” Premarital Agreements are enforceable contracts under Maryland Law.  [...]