When we think of love, we often envision romantic gestures or acts of kindness towards our family and friends. Sometimes love is expressed is less exciting ways, though those acts can be profound in impact. Planning for your family’s future is one of those ways, particularly estate planning. Estate planning is the process of putting in place systems and protections for your family’s financial future. In this article, our friends at NW Legacy Law look at why estate planning is a loving act for your family, and how the attorneys guide families and their loved ones through these important discussions.

1. Protecting Your Loved Ones: By engaging in pro-active estate planning, you get to decide who will be charge and what happens if your become incapacitated and at your death. If you have minor children, you can also nominate who you want to care for them as their guardian – and you can name different people to manage the finances for them too. Through the creation of a comprehensive estate plan, including wills, trusts, and powers of attorney (financial and healthcare), you can provide clear instructions on how your estate should be managed and who will be responsible for important decisions if you become incapacitated or pass away. If you don’t specify who you want in charge and what you want to happen, then your family will be left trying to guess what you wanted – and this can lead to significant conflict when each family member has a different opinion. Putting an estate plan in place ensures that your family members have clarity regarding your wishes and the authority to handle your affairs at your incapacity or death. 
2. Ensuring Financial Security: Estate planning allows you to secure your family’s financial future by making thoughtful decisions about asset distribution. By creating trusts, you can protect your loved ones from themselves and others. Trusts allow you to protect a person from themselves when they may not have the financial maturity to manage assets, which may be because of age, substance use challenges, or problems with managing money. Trusts also allow you to protect a person from others, particularly creditors. Unfortunately, the most likely creditor each of us faces is the person we said that we’d love until the end: an ex-spouse. Creating a trust for the benefit of your child or other family member can help protect the assets in the trust from going to the beneficiary’s ex-spouse. You can also establish specific provisions to provide for your children’s education, healthcare, and other endeavors important to your family, which might include religious obligations or service work. Taking the time to plan and allocate your assets wisely demonstrates your deep commitment for your family’s financial security, helping minimize the impact if you aren’t able to be there for them in the future.
3. Financial Planning: In putting together an estate plan, you will look at the financial resources available to you and your family at your incapacity and death. Looking ahead allows you to be proactive in putting disability insurance and life insurance in place if there is a financial shortfall expected. While a family might be able to raise funds through GoFundMe if a shortfall occurs at your incapacity or death, you can proactively make sure funds are immediately available – and not require your family to rely upon the generosity of others – through disability insurance and life insurance. 
4. Minimizing Stress and Burden: The death of a loved one is an emotionally challenging time for any family. By engaging in estate planning, you can alleviate some of the burdens and stress associated with the probate process. With a well-crafted estate plan in place, your family members will have clear instructions and guidance on how to handle your affairs, such as who is to be in charge and what is supposed to happen with your assets. Making these decisions while you’re alive minimizes confusion and potential disputes during a difficult time for your family and loved ones. Your thoughtful preparations will allow your family to be less concerned in trying to determine what you wanted, and to be more focused on grieving and healing.
5. Protecting Family Relationships: Estate planning can help preserve family harmony and prevent conflicts. What can be more loving than creating harmony and decreasing conflict? Clearly outlining your intentions and desires in legally binding documents helps eliminate ambiguity and reduces the likelihood of disagreements over who is in charge and how to distribute your assets. By making these decisions ahead of time and involving your family in the process, you foster open communication and transparency among your family and loved ones, ensuring that your wishes are understood and respected. While sharing your estate plan before you become incapacitated or die isn’t required, it makes your planning much stronger. This act of love can strengthen family bonds and prevent unnecessary strains on relationships.
6. Honoring Your Legacy: Each person’s life holds a unique story and legacy. Estate planning provides you with an opportunity to live your legacy and share that legacy with your family and loved ones. This also leads some people to reexamine what they are doing now while they are alive, not just at their death. This legacy might include how you support charitable organizations through volunteering and financial gifts – or your legacy might be how you make space for friendships. In your estate plan, you can include letters to your loved ones that provide guidance on how to honor your memory and the legacy that you wish to leave. 

Estate planning is far more than just a legal process—it is an expression of love and hope for your family’s future. By proactively engaging in estate planning, you protect your loved ones in the future by ensuring their financial security, and minimizing stress during difficult times. This act of love and intentional consideration demonstrates your commitment to your family. We recommend that you start the process of estate planning today, which could take the form of making an appointment with an estate planning attorney, writing out what you want to put in your estate plan, or talking to your family about what questions they have about if you passed early. Show your family that you love them today by getting started on your estate plan, so you can live your legacy.  

Elder Law Lawyer

Realizing that your senior loved one is being mistreated while living in a nursing home can be difficult to think about. After all, imagining someone we care about being abused at the hands of people who are supposed to take care of them can be bewildering. Sometimes the most vulnerable people get taken advantage of the most, and the senior population in particular is at risk for mental, physical, financial, and sexual abuse. As someone who may have placed their senior relative in a nursing home facility, part of your responsibility is overseeing their care to make sure that no incidents of neglect, abuse, or mistreatment is happening. And if you do notice that something is not right, you can intervene right away so that no further incidents occur and your loved one is transferred somewhere safe. 

Physical Abuse

When a nursing home resident endures physical pain, impairments, or injury due to mistreatment, this is considered an instance of physical abuse. Such abuse is one of the more common forms of mistreatment that happens in nursing home facilities, and why many people consult with a legal team, such as Carpenter & Lewis PLLC, for help safely removing their loved one from a harmful situation. Compared to other forms of abuse, physicality is a very dangerous element because it can cause life-threatening injuries and have long-lasting impacts on the person’s self esteem and mental health. 

Emotional Abuse

Mental abuse, also referred to as psychological abuse, is another common form of mistreatment inflicted on senior people that reside in nursing homes. Unlike physical abuse, which can leave behind visible evidence on the victim, mental abuse can be tricky to identify and frequently goes unnoticed. But the consequences of mental abuse can be severe, so if you suspect that your relative is a victim, you will need to consider taking legal action against the offender and nursing home facility. You also must safely remove your relative so that further incidents do not happen to them.

Neglect and Abandonment

Anytime that a senior resident with mobility issues is left for long periods of time by themselves is considered neglect. As an elder law lawyer explains, other examples of neglect are when a doctor or nurse is needed but a resident receives no response, caregivers do not change the bed or clothing of the resident regularly, caregivers fail to assist the resident with bath and dental hygiene, and caregivers fail to provide enough water, food, or medication. If a nursing home facility fails to offer required care or removes the senior resident from the home without ensuring their continued care is seen as committing abandonment. 

If you have noticed signs that something is not quite right with your loved one’s care in a nursing home, now is the time to take action for their protection. Physical abuse and emotional abuse, in addition to neglect or abandonment, is never okay or acceptable. Family members of an elderly person must watch out for signs of mistreatment in the nursing home, so they can take immediate steps to protect them from further harm, while also holding the offender accountable for their actions. 

Personal Injury Law Firm

The injuries following an accident could affect your estate planning goals for years to come. If you require legal assistance after being injured due to another party’s negligence, it would be in your best interest to contact a personal injury law firm in your area.

What are some examples of personal injury?

Personal injury cases involve harm or abuse of an individual by another person or product. These injuries typically occur because of ill will or neglect. Common examples of personal injury accidents include slips and falls, product malfunction, vehicle collisions, and elder abuse at a nursing home. 

When an individual is injured due to another person’s ill intent, or neglectful behavior, they have legal rights. Understanding those legal rights can be confusing, but thankfully skilled lawyers are willing and able to clear up any confusion. Don’t be bullied by an insurance company or other party to admit fault for an accident in which you are the victim. Survivors of personal injury accidents should feel empowered to pursue justice and accountability for what was done to them. The guilty party or parties need to be held responsible for their actions, or else they may continue the cycle of abuse and neglect. Clients should be encouraged to legally pursue accountability not only for themselves but for other future victims as well. 

Do all personal injury cases resolve in the courtroom?

Although some personal injury cases are formal lawsuits that result in a trial before a judge in court, not all cases resolve this way. Some clients choose to settle outside of court with an insurance company. Settling outside of court is usually a quicker process, but typically provides the client with lower compensation. Going to court may be a lengthy and more expensive option, but may provide higher compensation for clients. Skilled attorneys can provide insight and legal counsel to their clients, and their specific situations. If clients are confused about the legal proceedings, and their part in them, they should ask their lawyer. Part of an experienced lawyer’s job is to provide clarity and offer support to their clients throughout the entire legal process. 

How can a personal injury law firm help clients of personal injury accidents?

Having a law firm whom clients can trust is crucial to their legal journey. If a client is unhappy with their law firm or does not believe they are working in their best interest, they should seek another. Attorneys strive to provide their clients with a strong case to pursue high compensation for injuries sustained in the accident. 

Our friends at Brown Kiely, LLP  can tell you that damages from accidents may include medical bills, emotional, physical, and mental suffering, loss of work, loss of income, and decreased quality of life. Victims of personal injury accidents may suffer long-term, negative consequences. This will undoubtedly affect their work, travel, friendships, and relationships, often harming them. Survivors of traumatic events should be compensated fairly for their pain and suffering. Lawyers should work hard so their clients can focus on their recovery and health. If you have been injured in a personal injury accident, contact a personal injury law firm today, and start your journey toward accountability, and compensation. Call today for a risk-free consultation. 

Estate Planning Attorney

If you are wondering what an estate plan details, you are not alone. There are many people who are considering writing one, but they just aren’t sure what it’s all about. You may be surprised to know that writing an estate plan can benefit anyone, even if they don’t have much money in the bank or value in their belongings. Essentially, estate plans protect your legacy and ensure that those you care about the most inherit what you own. By having an estate plan written, you were providing for yourself, your loved ones, your pets, and your property. Many people find that after they establish an estate plan they feel more in control of their current life and future, and have peace of mind knowing that their family members are taken care of too.

As stated above, you don’t have to be a millionaire to benefit from an estate plan. In fact, anyone who is over the age of 18 would probably find it useful. Estate plans can vary immensely based on what your goals are, your financial situation, and where you live. There is no one size fits all version of an estate plan, so using auto generated programs online may not be in your best interest. Instead, many people receive guidance from an estate planning lawyer to ensure that their documents are legally binding and they have not forgotten anything.

The idea of estate planning can seem overwhelming, but to put it simply, it is leaving behind instructions regarding who you want to receive certain assets after your departure. When consulting with a law firm, as the Law Group of Iowa would recommend, you will discuss your goals, dreams, fears, family dynamic, and finances. After that, they can help you craft an estate plan that is clear and concise so that there are no confusions later on. If you are unsure about any of the legal language that is used when writing an estate plan, your lawyer is there to answer your questions as they come up.

There are many types of documents that may be included in your estate plan. One of the most common ones is a trust, which is a contract containing your preferences for what you want to happen to your assets after you pass away. Trusts like these have been used for hundreds of years, and can be revocable or irrevocable. The difference is that one can be changed over time, and another cannot be altered whatsoever. Other examples of documents to include in your estate plan include a will, healthcare POA, guardianship designations, durable power of attorney, beneficiary designations, personal intent letter, and more.

If you are interested in learning more about estate planning, consider finding a law firm near you that assists clients with this task. Sometimes all you need is some extra support and you’ll find you are done with your estate plan quicker than you imagined. But don’t forget, these documents may have to be updated overtime as your life circumstances change, but that you can get into more detail with after finding a lawyer to help you. Writing an estate plan does not have to be an intimidating experience, as it’s a useful tool that is utilized by many people to protect their family and the legacy they have built over a lifetime.

Power of Attorney

Accidents can happen in a variety of scenarios. Minus any immediate symptoms, such as broken bones, obvious bruises, or bleeding, you may be tempted to brush off any possible injuries you sustain as relatively minor and inconsequential. Many people don’t realize it, but even a minor accident can have major consequences, which is why it is important to have your power of attorney established. Anytime an accident involves a bump, blow, or jolt to the head, it is important to be aware of the serious and possibly permanent damages it can cause. Concussions are one of the most common types of personal injuries and medical experts continue to uncover the serious ramifications these injuries can have on every area of a victim’s life.

The following is a brief overview of the impact concussions can have on accident victims from a personal injury lawyer from the Law Office of Daniel E. Stuart, P.A.

Signs and Symptoms of Concussion

According to the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), a concussion involves any type of injury to the head that disrupts the brains normal processes and functions. In cases of a mild concussion, there may be no immediate or obvious outward signs or symptoms. As a result, victims may be tempted to shrug off a bump or blow to the head, not reporting it or seeking the medical attention they need.

However, everyone should know that even a minor concussion is nothing to take lightly, as it can have long-term impacts on your physical health and emotional well-being. The following signs and symptoms are ones you should be on the alert for and initiate a call to your medical provider if any appear:

• Loss of memory regarding the injury or confusion about the circumstances leading to the accident
• Headaches and ringing in the ears
• Feeling nauseous or vomiting
• Dizziness and lack of coordination
• Impaired sense of balance
• Sensitivity to light and vision disturbances
• Increased agitation and distractibility

Post-Concussion Syndrome

These symptoms can last for a period of weeks or even months, impairing the victim’s ability to work or engage in their normal activities. In cases where a victim may have suffered a previous mild concussion, the odds for long-ranging and permanently disabling effects increase.

Post-concussion syndrome was initially discovered by sports doctors analyzing the frequent head injuries among pro football players. However, the research clearly indicated that this syndrome could impact anyone who has suffered bumps or blows to the head and had little to do with the severity of the initial injury.

Symptoms of post-concussion syndrome are largely the same as with a concussion. The difference is that these symptoms tend to be more severe and instead of lasting months, they can occur over the course of years. Post-concussion syndrome can result in damage to the brain’s structure and permanent impairments in thought processes, limiting the individual’s cognitive abilities and having profound changes in their personality.

If your concussion was a result of an accident caused by another party, you may be entitled to financial compensation in a personal injury claim or lawsuit. A skilled personal injury attorney can evaluate your case and explain what legal recourse you may have.

Trust Lawyer

As a trust lawyer knows, trying to decide whether it may be time to see a family lawyer can be difficult. After all, there is a lot to think about when it comes to family and separations such as what assets will look like in the future — and what trusts you want to set up for your kids. If you are faced with this dilemma, you may want to consider several things so you can be better prepared. You do not just want to go into consultation with no idea of what kind of information you are seeking. Before you set up a consultation, it’s important to know basic facts right away so that you can make the most out of your meeting with the lawyer. Here are some things you should keep in mind about what information to know before you see a lawyer.

Ask about their qualifications 

Whenever you are doing research to find a suitable family lawyer,  you should ask about the qualifications that they have. Each lawyer has unique solid qualifications that make up their education, knowledge, skills, and case experience. You should only hire a lawyer who has had years of experience advising clients on family law issues and using their skills to develop strategies that have successfully enabled them to get the results that they want. Do not hire a lawyer who is not able to explain their qualifications in detail.

Have your questions ready

If you are about to go into consultation it is advised that you write down all of your questions beforehand. You can ask the lawyer as many questions as you can and they will answer you in detail. If you do not have your questions ready you might be missing crucial information that you need. You also want to make the most out of the lawyer’s time and make sure that the meeting is productive for both of you.

Write down notes

Before you see a family lawyer you should bring a notebook so we can write down notes and whatever information that they give you. if you do not write down notes you could miss important details that can help you better understand your case and the steps that you should take to move forward. Find a lawyer with the right experience who is capable of handling your case and assisting you with all aspects of it. According to a family lawyer from our friends at Kempen & Company, make sure to choose a lawyer who will be able to effectively work on your case.

Consider the lawyer’s advice

Whatever the lawyer explains to you about your case you should consider it carefully. The more information that you’re able to give a lawyer to add context to your case, the better. They will need as much information as they can collect in order to develop a strong sense of the solutions that could be applicable to your case. Family lawyers have a lot of legal knowledge so if they are recommending that you make certain decisions do not ignore them. Otherwise, you could make your situation even worse.

For my information about what you can gain from seeing a family lawyer, request a confidential appointment with a skilled lawyer in your area right away.