Category Archives: Estate Planning
The Best Time To Create An Estate Plan Is When You Don’t Need It
I recently had a few different people ask me the following: “Jeff, when is the best time to create an estate plan?” My inclination was to explain common triggers for creating (or updating) an estate plan — things like marriage or divorce, birth of a child or receiving an inheritance. But after looking at… Read More »
The Four Phases of a Revocable Living Trust
Sometimes the best way to understand a concept is to break it down into different phases over time. I think this construct works well for understanding estate planning with a revocable living trust, which serves varying goals and purposes at each different stage. For a basic primer on revocable living trusts, read here. The… Read More »
April 16 is National Healthcare Decisions Day
Did you know that April 16 (every year) is National Healthcare Decisions Day (NHDD)? Just what is NHDD? It’s a “50-state annual initiative to provide clear, concise, and consistent information on healthcare decision-making to both the public and providers/facilities through the widespread availability and dissemination of simple, free, and uniform tools (not just forms)… Read More »
Legendary Comedians, Estate Battles and Your Stuff
The late George Carlin is one of my favorite comedians of all-time. One of his legendary routines revolves around how the meaning of life is basically finding “a place for all your stuff!” More recently, Jerry Seinfeld riffed on how we have “too many things” and that it’s all simply in different states of… Read More »
Article by Jeffrey R. Gottlieb Published in Illinois Bar Journal
The January 2015 edition of the Illinois Bar Journal features a lead article written and published by yours truly, entitled “A New Weapon Against Elder Abuse: Presumptively Void Transfers to Caregivers.” CLICK HERE FOR A PDF OF THE ARTICLE The construct for the article began right here as a blog post on September 2,… Read More »
Illinois Power of Attorney for Health Care Gets Makeover in 2015
It seems like just yesterday that I was revising our forms and explaining the brand-new ‘Illinois Statutory Short Form Power of Attorney for Health Care’ (“PAH”). Three years goes by quickly. Apparently, the legislature had second thoughts about the July 2011 rewrite because they’ve yet again rewritten the Illinois statutory form PAH. On August… Read More »
Guest Blog: Relational Estate Planning
Today’s post is a guest blog written by Stephanie Heavey about Relational Estate Planning. For more information, contact Stephanie at r.estplanner@gmail.com You just breathed a sigh of relief. The “t’s” have been crossed and the “i’s” have been dotted on the will, the trust, the powers of attorney. That task you’d been “meaning to… Read More »
National Estate Planning Awareness Week is October 20-26
Are you aware that this week is National Estate Planning Awareness Week (NEPAW)? You are now. In 2008, the 110th Congress passed a resolution designating the third week of October as such. The resolution recognizes the importance of estate planning, encourages the distribution of estate planning information by professionals to all Americans and is… Read More »
Are you (and your Estate Plan) Ready for Some (Bears) Football?
Over 60,000 Chicago Bears fans (and hopefully very few Packers fans) will converge on Soldier Field this Sunday to watch the Bears beat the Packers (the power of positive thinking, right?). Around half of them will be there by virtue of a “Permanent Seat License” (PSL). A PSL is a device mainly used for… Read More »
Unmarried Couples Have Acute Need for Estate Planning
I sometimes review and answer basic questions in online legal forums. Some questions are truly “off the wall”, while others are thought-provoking. The following question was recently posed in an online Q&A forum: QUESTION: A couple not married but living together for over 20 years, if one passes away does the other one have… Read More »