In this episode of Women & Wills, Tish Hevel, CEO and Founder of the Brain Donor Project, explains why donating brain tissue for basic research is an incredible gift, helping researchers working to treat and cure neurological, neuropsychiatric, and neurodevelopmental disorders such as dementia and Parkinson’s.  Her father , Gene Armentrout (pictured above) wanted to donate his brain to science when he died in 2015. Back then, it wasn’t easy. This inspired Tish to create the Brain Donor Project, which works with the NeuroBioBank of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to make it easy for people to register in advance and arrange for brain donation upon death.

The donation of one brain will provide tissue for dozens, sometimes hundreds, of neurological studies. There is no cost to the family of the decedent, and a family can receive, upon request, a comprehensive report on the neuropathology of the donated brain. This report can provide answers for the relatives of the donor that may not have been answerable without a post-mortem examination.

Anyone over the age of 18 can donate their brain, and healthy brains are needed too. The Brain Donor Project makes it easy.

To find out more: braindonorproject.org

To learn more about brain donation: https://neurobiobank.nih.gov/donors-how-become-donor/

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The post Donate Your Brain to Science: The Brain Donor Project appeared first on Life/Death/Law Blog.

In this episode of Women & Wills, Dr. Jessica Zitter, the producer and Director of the new movie, Caregiver: a love story talks about the crisis in family caregiver burden and how the movie she thought she was making, about the hospice experience of Bambi, a  59-year old woman, who decided to die at home under hospice care, became instead the story of how her husband, Rick, became her primary caregiver, and the toll it took on him.

In a verité fashion, the film takes you inside Rick’s journey as the caregiver, and highlights the issues faced by the 53 million non-professional caregivers working double-time and for free in jobs that they are completely untrained for.

If you are already a family caregiver, or are anticipating becoming one, listen to our conversation about family caregiver burden, what hospice can, and can’t do, and how to plan ahead for managing a truly difficult, but almost universal, experience.

To find out more about Caregiver: a love story, click here.

To find out more about resources for family caregivers, click here.

 Follow me on:

twitter.com/womenandwills

Instagram.com/womenandwills

facebook.com/WomenandWills

Linkedin.com/in/lizahanks

The post Caregiver: A Love Story appeared first on Life/Death/Law Blog.

The article details a familiar story-well-educated parents who were private about their financial lives and eager to remain independent, even in the face of memory loss at a relatively young age (mid-70’s). But as Leslie started to fall, and have periods of confusion, the couple’s children found them a caretaker with excellent references to help them with daily tasks such as driving to appointments and preparing meals. As their parents continued to decline, the family decided it was time to get them more care. But the parents declined and rejected the very idea of moving into an assisted living facility.

At that point, their children decided it was time to take a look at their parent’s finances to see what kind of care they could afford. Even with a Durable Power of Attorney in place, it took awhile to get access to the account statements and that was when they realized what was happening, called the police and put a stop to the theft.

The adult children in this family did so many things right: they did their best to hire a caretaker with excellent references; they did a background check; they had a power of attorney in place; they were actively involved with their parents on a daily basis. Despite the fact that California has an Elder Abuse Reporting Act that requires an extensive list of people who interact with the elderly, including banks and credit unions, to report suspected financial abuse of elderly people, no one reported anything to the police until the family rang the alarm.

So, what’s the take away here? The one thing that might have made the caretaker’s theft apparent sooner would have been the parents’ acceptance of the need for their adult children’s oversight sooner. Had the Berkes’ been willing to allow their children to co-manage their accounts, the children would have been able to stop the caretaker from opening up credit cards in their parents’ names, pull cash out of the ATM’s and write checks on the bank accounts. So many elderly people prize their independence and can’t see their own cognitive decline. So many adult children, especially of accomplished, well-educated parents, are not in the habit of stepping in to supervise their parents and are reticient to discuss finances with them.

But as this story makes clear, perhaps we all need to recognize the need for frank converations and pragmatic partnerships to protect our elders from such abuse, sooner rather than later.

The post Financial Elder Abuse: Easy to Miss appeared first on Life/Death/Law Blog.

This week, a consortium of internatinal journalists published the results of their investigation into the “Pandora Papers,” an enormous set of leaked documents that reveal the offshore-banking and tax-sheltering tactics of the very rich.  There have been other sets of leaked documents, but this set, as outlined in Casey Michel’s excellent article in the Atlantic, “The United States of Dirty Money,” reveals that the United States has become one of the premier sites for financial secrecy.

I would have thought that, after the Trump era, nothing about large scale U.S. financial corruption would shock me anymore. But I was wrong. As a trust and estates attorney I attend annual conferences where well-respected experts discuss cutting-edge tax strategies.  I’ve heard about states, like South Dakota, that have modified their trust and estates laws to offer anonymous trusts and trusts that can go on, theoretically, forever.

Such legal ‘innovations,’ are discussed at legal conferences in dry technical terms like “forum shopping,” (looking for state laws that can accomodate the desire of a person to avoid taxation and oversight) and “dynasty trusts,” (trusts that do not ever have to terminate) and “silent trusts” (rules that limit the ability of beneficiaries, law enforcement or anyone else to get information about a trust or the money inside of it).

But as the Pandora Papers reveal, such neutral sounding ‘legal reforms’ have enormous financial implications: South Dakota alone had the most such anonymous, perpetual trusts of any state in the union and experts estimate that South Dakota trusts alone are holding more than $360 billion in untraceable assets, including money from autocrats and shady politicians.

Trust me, I have never, once, heard any discussion at any legal conference that I have attended in the last 20 years about the ethical dimension of making tax avoidance a premier value of an entire profession, let alone the cost to our democracy and the common good by such tactics.

As a result of the Pandora Papers revelations, lawmakers introduced legislation this week that, as reported in the Washington Post would require trust companies, lawyers, art dealers and others to investigate foreign clients seeking to move money into the American financial system. The proposed law, known (and I just LOVE this) as the “Enablers Act,” would create basic due-diligence rules for American gatekeepers who facilitate the flow of foreign assets into the U.S. After 9/11, banks were required to report dirty money, but if “law, real estate and accounting firms look the other way, that creates a loophole that crooks and kleptocrats can sail a yacht through,” said Rep. Tom Malinowski, a co-sponsor the bill.

I find it unsurprising, but nonetheless disappointing, that it will take federal law to require estate planners and others to ask basic questions about the source of the money their clients are so keen to protect. I welcome these requirements and hope that such due diligence might just also spark conversations about what it means for a profession to value tax avoidance over such things as civic duty, inter-family communication, or the real meaning of legacy.

The post Trust Issues: South Dakota Tax Haven reveals the ugly side of planning appeared first on Life/Death/Law Blog.

Proposition 19 has two main effects. The first makes big changes for homeowners over 55, or those who are severely disabled, or victims of fire, who want to sell their residence and purchase another home, either in their same county or elsewhere while keeping their current low property tax rate. While an important change for many of us, I want to focus here on the estate planning implications of Proposition 19, which stem from the second part of the law.

Proposition 19 makes significant changes to the basic rules for property tax transfers between parents and children (and grandparents to grandchildren) as of February of 2021. Spoiler alert: your children are most likely going to be paying more property taxes than you are.

Here are the basics. The complexities are still be worked out as the Board of Equalization and the County Assessors work to implement the new law.

PRIMARY RESIDENCES
If you leave your primary residence to your children at death, you WILL be able to transfer your property tax rate to them, but with new restrictions. The biggest restriction is that your children are going to have to use that residence as their primary residence, no later than one year after the date of transfer. (How does this work if there are multiple children? We don’t yet know.)
 
The property tax rate that you transfer to your children will be adjusted upward if the house is valued at more than $1 million plus your adjusted base-year value (the value on your property tax bill that the assessor uses to calculate the tax due, which is based on the purchase price with a small annual adjustment). To put this another way, if the house is currently valued at more than $1 million plus that adjusted base-year value, the kids will pay more than you were paying, but less than a new owner would pay, using a formula that is complex, but that results in excluding only $1 million from property tax reassessment.
 
OTHER REAL PROPERTY
 
Parents WON’T be able to transfer any additional real property to their children without a property tax reassessment. Until now, a parent could transfer up to $1 million in such property, calculated by using the adjusted base-year value (which was generally much lower than the current fair market value of property). In fact, Proposition 19 was motivated, in part, by public outrage at the “Lebowski loophole” reported by the LA Times, in which actor Jeff Bridges and his siblings were renting out their deceased father’s Malibu home for big bucks, while paying their father’s low inherited property tax rate.
 
PLANNING IMPLICATIONS
If you own rental or vacation properties and you want to preserve your current low property tax rates for your children, you might simply sell them these properties. You might also gift them these properties before February 15, 2021. Such a gift, however, has gift and income tax implications:
 

1. You will have to report the gift by April of the following year on a gift tax return, which will then reduce your lifetime gift and estate tax exemption by the fair market value of the gift.

2. Your children’s tax basis in the property will be your tax basis, which means if they sell the property, they will have to pay capital gains tax on the gain. If, for example, you purchased the property in 1980 for $200,000 and it is worth $1.2 million when your child sells it, they will owe capital gains on that $1 million of gain. Using 33% as a rough estimate of that tax, they will owe $330,000. If instead, they inherited that property at your death, and it was worth $1.2 million at that time, they would inherit it at that basis. If they sold it immediately, they would owe no capital gains at all. So, families need to identify their long term goals for a property—if it will be sold ultimately, the capital gains savings may be greater in the long-term than the property tax savings in the short term.

3. It won’t be your property anymore. If you want to use it, you will need to pay rent to the kids. If they want to remodel it, or fail to take care of it, or have to sell it as a result of divorce, you will have no control over those decisions.

 
Another option is to take advantage of the fact that the rules for property tax reassessment did not change for entities, like LLC’s, as a result of this election. Property held within an LLC does not get reassessed unless more than a 50% ownership interest is transferred.  Lawyers, of course, have become adept at making sure that this majority control rule is not triggered.

EXAMPLES

Some families are taking advantage of this fact by combining gifting some of their interest in additional properties to their children and forming LLC’s, in various orders depending upon the facts, to both protect current low property tax rates now and prevent reassessment later when a parent dies.

Example: Mom owns a residence with a fair market value of $900,000. Her assessed value (that adjusted base-year value) is $300,000. When Mom dies, she leaves the house to her son, Lewis. Within one year of Mom’s death, Lewis makes the house his primary residence. Because the fair market value plus the assessed value (1.2 million) is not more than $1 million plus the assessed value ($1.3 million), there will be no reassessment for Lewis. Using a rate of 1.25%, he would owe $3750 per year in property tax, which is based on Mom’s assessed value of $300,000.

Example: Dad owns a residence with a fair market value of $2 million. His assessed value (that adjusted base-year value) is $500,000. When Dad dies, his daughter, June, inherits the house and makes it her primary residence. June will be taxed as if the property she inherited was worth $1 million. The calculation is this: she pays taxes on the current fair market value of the house ($2 million) – $1 million because that fair market value ($2 million) is more than Dad’s assessed value ($500k) plus $1 million ($1.5). If we use 1.25% as an estimated rate of property tax, her property tax bill would be $12,500 annually. Her Dad would have paid $6250. A new owner would pay $25,000. Cabin in Ontario with autumn colors in background Example: Mom owns a residence with a fair market value of $3 million. Her assessed value (that adjusted base-year value) is $53,000 because she and her now deceased husband bought the house in 1953. All of her three children already own their own homes. They decide to keep the property anyway, set up an LLC, and use it as a rental. The property will be reassessed at a value of $3 million, and the annual property taxes would be approximately $37,500 annually. Mom was paying $662.50 annually. If you or anyone you know has questions or concerns about Prop 19, feel free to get in touch or to share this article with them.

The post Prop. 19 Passes: Probably Means Higher Taxes for Your Kids appeared first on Life/Death/Law Blog.

This is the situation: An elderly parent has a fair amount of money and two children. One is wealthy with luxury properties, a spouse and no children. This child lives far away and visits only sporadically. The other lives near the parent, earns a modest salary, has children and several grandchildren and regularly visits and helps the elderly parent. This parent thinks it’s only fair to leave her children an equal share of her assets. Is this, in fact, ethical?

The ethicist analyzes it as I would, really. He notes that it may not, in fact, be fair to treat people who aren’t equal in life equally in an estate plan. But he goes on to say that the question of what makes people ‘equal‘ isn’t so easy to determine, especially in families. Clearly, he notes, these two children are not equal in terms of their own material wealth, nor in the care they’ve shown their parents over the years.

It might make economic sense to give more to the child who has less, because it will certainly make a larger difference to the poorer child to inherit assets when that parent dies. And it might make a certain kind of practical sense to give more to the child who has done more caretaking to that parent, though, as the ethicist rightly points out, “one reason money is a troublesome idiom for expressing gratitude here is that it awkwardly suggests a mercenary motive for those years of filial piety.”

Treating both children equally despite their differences makes them equal in this important way: that they are both the children of the same parent and that treating them equally avoids the problem of assessing their needs comparatively. In the end, the ethicist decides that it would be ethical either way.

But no one has ever asked me if it is ethical to leave their assets in different shares, they ask me if it is fair to do so. While I realize that the distinction between the two is slight, to me, ethical has to do with abstract moral principals, while fair gets to the nitty gritty of everyday parenting. One day, when my son was 3 or so, he wailed, “that’s not FAIR!” when his 8 year old sister gave him exactly 1/2 of a chocolate chip cookie. “Sam,” I said, “you got exactly as much of the cooke as Kate did, that’s the very definition of fair.” “But,” he cried, ‘it’s not what I wanted!” And, that to me, is what parents are really asking me –will my children think this is OK? Will they get what they wanted?

Here’s what I tell them.  I tell them that “fair” is different in each family, and they have to be the judge of what’s fair for them. Fair might be giving more to one child with greater need or to recognize a child’s caretaking efforts over the years. But fair also might mean equal shares for everyone in the interest of maintaining family harmony after you’ve died.

“Certainly,” I also say, “whatever decision you make, it will be better respected if it isn’t a surprise.”

In the end, I agree with the ethicist’s conclusion:  “If the estate were to be divided in a way that favored one child over the other, the parent should make it clear why doing so was consistent with each having an equal claim to the parent’s love.”

The post What Does Fair Mean in a Family? appeared first on Life/Death/Law Blog.

If you are stuck at home and without basic legal documents, listen up. In the spirit of offering what I can to help people gain some piece of mind amidst the panic and uncertainty of the pandemic, here are some resources that you can use to get the basics in order, for now.

Although none of the documents I’m discussing take the place of a comprehensive estate plan, they are all good things to have. And most of them are documents that you can put in place with minimal or no expense as long as you have access to the internet, a printer, and some cooperative neighbors willing to stay six feet away while you sign them. Once you do sign them, place them in a safe place, let your loved ones know where to find them in case you do get sick, and then, please, go out and take a walk.

Advance Health Care Directives

An Advance Health Care Directive, also known as a Health Care Proxy or Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care  and Living Will in some states, appoints people to act as your Agents to make medical decisions for you if you are unable to make them for yourself.  

Here is a downloadable Advance Health Care Directive form for California that follows the California Probate Code’s statutory form.

The AARP offers free, downloadable Advance Directives for all fifty states here:

The California Hospital Association offers a free downloadable form for California here.

If you are a Kaiser member, Kaiser Permanente offers a downloadable form here.

If you would like to learn more about end of life planning and palliative care, please listen to Dr. Jessica Zitter’s interview on my podcast, Life Death Law. She has so much to say about how to be prepared, who to choose as your Agent, and how to negotiate a vist to the ICU.

DNR and POLST forms

A DNR Order tells emergency medical personnel that you don’t want CPR or other measures, such as intubation, if your heart stops beating. This form, however, needs to be signed by a doctor to be valid, so it’s not exactly a DIY resource. Still, if you are concerned, please do contact your doctor or local Health Department to find out how to get this in place.

A POLST form, which is often printed on bright pink paper, is another medical order that is similar to, but broader than, a DNR Order. The name stands for Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment and it is exactly that — a medically binding order that states what you do, and don’t, want at end of life. 

For more information about POLST forms, you can go here.

Durable Power of Attorney

A Durable Power of Attorney is a legal document that names Agents who can act for you financially, doing things such as writing checks on your behalf, paying your bills, managing your investments, withdrawing assets from your retirement accounts, and paying your taxes. 

California offers a simple Durable Power of Attorney as part of its Probate Code.  You can find this many places, but here’s one link.

Wills

A Will is the last on my list of basic estate documents that everyone should have. If you don’t write one, each state has a set of rules that will determine who will get your property at death (called the laws of intestate succession)  and a judge will have to appoint guardians for your minor children without any input from you. 

So, how can you make a Will right now, if you can’t leave the house? I have three suggestions:

1. If you live in California, you can download a simple fill-in-the-blank form offered for free by the State Bar Association here.
2. If you want to do a more customized Will, and you can afford to pay 89.99, you can use WillMaker, software that uses a question and answer format to produce Wills, Durable Powers of Attorney and Health Care Directives for all states, except Louisiana. You can download Quicken WillMaker and Trust 2020.
3. You can create an Online Will for $59.99 at Nolo.com for all states except Louisana.

The post DIY Estate Planning for the Pandemic appeared first on Life/Death/Law Blog.

If you are stuck at home and without basic legal documents, listen up. In the spirit of offering what I can to help people gain some piece of mind amidst the panic and uncertainty of the pandemic, here are some resources that you can use to get the basics in order, for now.

Although none of the documents I’m discussing take the place of a comprehensive estate plan, they are all good things to have. And most of them are documents that you can put in place with minimal or no expense as long as you have access to the internet, a printer, and some cooperative neighbors willing to stay six feet away while you sign them. Once you do sign them, place them in a safe place, let your loved ones know where to find them in case you do get sick, and then, please, go out and take a walk.

Advance Health Care Directives

An Advance Health Care Directive, also known as a Health Care Proxy or Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care  and Living Will in some states, appoints people to act as your Agents to make medical decisions for you if you are unable to make them for yourself.  

Here is a downloadable Advance Health Care Directive form for California that follows the California Probate Code’s statutory form.

The AARP offers free, downloadable Advance Directives for all fifty states here:

The California Hospital Association offers a free downloadable form for California here.

If you are a Kaiser member, Kaiser Permanente offers a downloadable form here.

If you would like to learn more about end of life planning and palliative care, please listen to Dr. Jessica Zitter’s interview on my podcast, Life Death Law. She has so much to say about how to be prepared, who to choose as your Agent, and how to negotiate a vist to the ICU.

DNR and POLST forms

A DNR Order tells emergency medical personnel that you don’t want CPR or other measures, such as intubation, if your heart stops beating. This form, however, needs to be signed by a doctor to be valid, so it’s not exactly a DIY resource. Still, if you are concerned, please do contact your doctor or local Health Department to find out how to get this in place.

A POLST form, which is often printed on bright pink paper, is another medical order that is similar to, but broader than, a DNR Order. The name stands for Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment and it is exactly that — a medically binding order that states what you do, and don’t, want at end of life. 

For more information about POLST forms, you can go here.

Durable Power of Attorney

A Durable Power of Attorney is a legal document that names Agents who can act for you financially, doing things such as writing checks on your behalf, paying your bills, managing your investments, withdrawing assets from your retirement accounts, and paying your taxes. 

California offers a simple Durable Power of Attorney as part of its Probate Code.  You can find this many places, but here’s one link.

Wills

A Will is the last on my list of basic estate documents that everyone should have. If you don’t write one, each state has a set of rules that will determine who will get your property at death (called the laws of intestate succession)  and a judge will have to appoint guardians for your minor children without any input from you. 

So, how can you make a Will right now, if you can’t leave the house? I have three suggestions:

1. If you live in California, you can download a simple fill-in-the-blank form offered for free by the State Bar Association here.
2. If you want to do a more customized Will, and you can afford to pay 89.99, you can use WillMaker, software that uses a question and answer format to produce Wills, Durable Powers of Attorney and Health Care Directives for all states, except Louisiana. You can download Quicken WillMaker and Trust 2020.
3. You can create an Online Will for $59.99 at Nolo.com for all states except Louisana.

The post DIY Estate Planning for the Pandemic appeared first on Life/Death/Law Blog.

As I write this, roughly 1/4 of Americans are being asked to shelter at home in an effort to flatten the infection curve of the COVID-19 virus. I know that this is a scary time, and that many people have suddenly realized that they need basic estate planning documents, just in case they get sick.

Although none of the documents I’m about to suggest take the place of a comprehensive estate plan, they are all good things to have. And most of them are documents that you can put in place with minimal or no expense as long as you have access to the internet, a printer, and some cooperative neighbors willing to stay six feet away while you sign them. Once you do sign them, place them in a safe place, let your loved ones know where to find them in case you do get sick, and then, please, go out and take a walk.

Advance Health Care Directives

An Advance Health Care Directive, also known as a Health Care Proxy or Durable Power of Attorney for Health Care  and Living Will in some states, appoints people to act as your Agents to make medical decisions for you if you are unable to make them for yourself.  If, for example, you are unconscious or too ill or confused by heavy medication to understand the consequences of a medical decision, your Agents can make them on your behalf.  Advance Directives also allow you to state your wishes for end-of-life care, such as whether or not to prolong your life by artificial means. In the current pandemic, this may mean whether or not to use a ventilator to enable you to breathe; in other situations it may mean using artificial nutrition or hydration.  For that decision, your Agent is supposed to act to carry out your stated wishes, not substitute their own. Advance Directives also allow you to state your wishes for relief from pain and access to palliative care and organ donation.

Here is a downloadable Advance Health Care Directive form for California that follows the California Probate Code’s statutory form.

The AARP offers free, downloadable Advance Directives for all fifty states here:

The California Hospital Association offers a free downloadable form for California here.

If you are a Kaiser member, Kaiser Permanente offers a downloadable form here.

If you would like to learn more about end of life planning and palliative care, please listen to Dr. Jessica Zitter’s interview on my podcast, Life Death Law. She has so much to say about how to be prepared, who to choose as your Agent, and how to negotiate a vist to the ICU.

DNR and POLST forms

A DNR Order tells emergency medical personnel that you don’t want CPR or other measures, such as intubation, if your heart stops beating. DNR Orders are used both in hospital settings and at home, in case EMT’s come to your house on an emergency call. In some states, these are called by different names, such as “Comfort One” or “DNR Form.” If you have a terminal illness, strong negative feelings about CPR, or feel at particular risk for cardiac or respiratory arrest, you may want to have a DNR Order in your medical file and on your refrigerator. This form, however, needs to be signed by a doctor to be valid, so it’s not exactly a DIY resource. Still, if you are concerned, please do contact your doctor or local Health Department to find out how to get this in place.

A POLST form, which is often printed on bright pink paper, is another medical order that is similar to, but broader than, a DNR Order. The name stands for Physician Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment and it is exactly that — a medically binding order that states what you do, and don’t, want at end of life. A POLST form goes into more detail about end of life treatment, including the use of antibiotics, feeding tubes, and other life-sustaining measures. If you are concerned about being hospitalized and want your medical wishes to be clear and binding upon your treating physicians, please discuss this with your doctor as well.

For more information about POLST forms, you can go here.

Durable Power of Attorney

A Durable Power of Attorney is a legal document that names Agents who can act for you financially, doing things such as writing checks on your behalf, paying your bills, managing your investments, withdrawing assets from your retirement accounts, and paying your taxes. There are two kinds of Durable Powers of Attorney: those that are effective upon signing and those that are effective only when you are incapacitated (called “Springing Durable Powers of Attorney”). If you want your trusted Agents to be able to act for you now, an immediately effective Power of Attorney is appropriate. If you want your Agent only to act for you when, and if, you are incapacitated, then a Springing Durable Power of Attorney is the right one for you.

California offers a simple Durable Power of Attorney as part of its Probate Code.  You can find this many places, but here’s one link.

Wills

A Will is the last on my list of basic estate documents that everyone should have. If you don’t write one, each state has a set of rules that will determine who will get your property at death (called the laws of intestate succession)  and a judge will have to appoint guardians for your minor children without any input from you. Not all of your property will pass via your Will upon your death — assets with beneficiary designations, most often retirement accounts and life insurance policies, but also sometimes bank and brokerage accounts, will be paid out directly to your named beneficiaries.

So, how can you make a Will right now, if you can’t leave the house? I have three suggestions:

1. If you live in California, you can download a simple fill-in-the-blank form offered for free by the State Bar Association here.
2. If you want to do a more customized Will, and you can afford to pay 89.99, you can use WillMaker, software that uses a question and answer format to produce Wills, Durable Powers of Attorney and Health Care Directives for all states, except Louisiana. You can download Quicken WillMaker and Trust 2020.
3. You can create an Online Will for $59.99 at Nolo.com for all states except Louisana.

There are, of course, other online providers of legal documents, such as LegalZoom, but I have written for Nolo for the last 20 years, and am most familiar with their documents and their internal editing process.

So, good luck, be healthy, and put the basics in place.

The post DIY Estate Planning Resources During The COVID Pandemic appeared first on Life/Death/Law Blog.

In this episode of Life/Death/Law, Rebecca Soffer, the CEO and co-founder of Modern Loss, shares the insights she's gained from starting a ground-breaking website, Modern Loss, publishing a wonderful new book, Modern Loss: Candid conversations about grief. Beginner's Welcome, and hosting a national series of live storytelling events that discuss grief and loss in honest, vivid, and, above all, human,terms. Rebecca, and her co-founder and co-author, Gabrielle Birkner, both suffered loss at a young age, felt the isolation that comes with that, and decided to create a community to destigmatize grief and loss.

If you, or someone you love, is dealing with profound loss, Modern Loss offers community, great advice, and a place to share, in their own words, "the unspeakably taboo, unbelievably hilarious, and unexpectedly beautiful terrain of navigating your life after a death."

Here's what Modern Loss isn't: too clinical, overtly religious, patronizing, or cheesy. Instead, it offers well-written personal essays, tons of resources for the confused, links to relevant articles and a way to connect with others who understand what it means to survive loss. I loved my conversation with Rebecca, you will too. Enjoy!

Click here to find out more about Modern Loss.

Click here to find out more about Modern Loss: Candid Conversation About Grief. Beginners Welcome.

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The post Modern Loss: Rebecca Soffer appeared first on Life/Death/Law Blog.