Check this out! Alexis Martin Neely on CNBC’s MONEY giving advice on how to make sure your parents and their money is taken care of. If you have a parent you’re concerned about, you won’t want to miss this.
Tips for making sure your children are cared for in the event of your death.
By CYNTHIA RUPE The Orange County Register
"Mommy, what happens after you die?"
It's a question most kids ask at some point – and we may quickly paint a picture of fluffy clouds, golden roads, rainbows and go about our day.
It's a question parents rarely want to truly consider. But ask yourself – what would happen to your kids if you died? Who would take care of them?
"A will may not be enough," says attorney Darlynn Morgan of The Morgan Law Group in Newport Beach. Morgan, a personal family lawyer, offers estate planning tips and advice to parenting and moms' groups, with a particular focus on children.
Estate planning should be about more
than just passing on financial wealth; it should also capture those intangible
and uniquely personal, spiritual and intellectual assets such as a person's
values, experiences, and thoughts about the loved ones he or she is leaving
behind. In our office, we help our clients capture and preserve those family
wealth assets. The following article, by Kathy
Hansen and posted on her blog, A Storied
Career, discusses the
importance and methods of capturing those
stories: Darlynn Morgan
I so wish I
had captured more of my family's stories, especially those of my dad and his
five brothers and sisters who are now all gone but one. In her article in the Christian Science
Monitor, Marilyn Gardner writes about senior citizens who are
ensuring their stories will live on.
Gardner cites
Hedrick Ellis, who hired a personal historian to interview his
parents.
"You hear
these stories over the years, but nobody ever really gets around to writing them
down," says Mr. Ellis of Arlington, Mass. "This seemed like an easy and practical
way of capturing them."
Gardner quotes
Paula Stahel, president of the Association of Personal Historians, who niotes
"an increase in the number of elders who want to be sure their stories are
handed down." Another personal historian, David O'Neil, is quoted as observing
that "it's always a baby boomer who has children and aging parents. They look at
their parents and their children and wonder, ‘What are my children going to
remember about my own parents, and how do I capture and preserve their life
stories?' As the World War II generation is passing away, there are a lot of
efforts to record their stories."
Alexis did an excellent job on View from the Bay recently educating consumers about what legal documents they need, what they can prepare for themselves and how to find the perfect Personal Family Lawyer. She touched on the fact that estate planning is important for everyone, rich or poor, old or young. Check it out today to make sure you have everything you need to be prepared
Michael
Phelps, who became the first person to win eight gold medals at a
single Olympics earlier this week, also became a richer man: He
automatically earned $1 million for his accomplishments through his
contract with Speedo, and his agent
told the Wall
Street Journal that he expects Phelps's performance in Beijing to earn him $100
million over the rest of his life. (Phelps already pulled in $3
million to $5 million a year through endorsements.)
But
a life of luxury isn't a foregone conclusion. Plenty of celebrities,
including MC Hammer and Kim Basinger, have raked in millions only to
run into financial trouble later. I spoke with Alby Salaman, chair of
Holland & Knight's private wealth services group for the
mid-Atlantic region and lawyer to several NBA and NFL players, about
what Phelps should do to protect his windfall. Excerpts:
Alexis Martin Neely, founder of the Family Wealth Planning Institute and the Personal Family Lawyer (TM)
Program, of which I am proud to be a part, appeared on the NBC Today Show to
discuss her new book “Wear Clean Underwear.” In this 4 minute video segment she
discusses the need for parents to name guardians for their children, both
short-term and long-term, and the importance of passing property to them in the
right way.
They’re
arriving by the hundreds every month. I’m talking about family pets
being turned over to animal shelters when their owners are facing home
foreclosure! According to USA Today, animal shelters in high
foreclosure areas are getting the brunt of it, and there’s a growing
concern that more pets could be on the way – due to a rough economy and
the rising unemployment rate.
Thinking about getting a new
family pet? Consider checking with local shelters or rescue groups- you
are likely to have a large selection of wonderful pets to choose from.
Also, if you are a pet lover, consider giving. Now more than ever the
Humane Society and local pet shelters need your help! Check out www.ochumanesociety.com or www.ocpetinfo.com/animalshelterlist.htm.
Professor Randy Pausch is the professor and father of three that has been making the media rounds with his inspirational “Last Lecture” as he is dying of pancreatic cancer. A dear client, who has had her fair share of loss in life, forwarded the video link to me, and I absolutely must pass this along to you. His talk is not morose, it is incredible and a must see! The link below takes you to his 11 minute talk on Oprah.
He says, early in life we must decide the question: “Are you a Tigger or an Eeyore?” Tiggers are energetic, optimistic, curious, enthusiastic, and they have fun. Professor Pausch exhorts us to never ever underestimate the importance of having fun. He says: “I am dying soon and I am choosing to have fun today, tomorrow and every other day I have left.”
As a parent, you just might – at some point- have to deal with unruly tantrums, your child refusing to go to bed, sibling rivalry, snappy attitudes, or just plain defiance! Admit it, you’ve seen a few, (if not all) the episodes of that infamous show, “Super Nanny.” You watch it to get advice for dealing with your own kids. Seems that Jo always knows just what to do in every situation! Do you wish you had the answers to your own child’s “issues?" Often a parenting book or even a conversation with a friend will give you the answers you need…..
But then there’s those problems that have gone beyond your control…. This is when you need to call a Child Therapist or even better, your own personal Parent Coach. This is the hot new strategy for dealing with family struggles. We live in a crazy world! And all of these demands have definitely put more pressure on families -- creating more stress than a parent can handle sometimes. Parent coaching provides the opportunity for a mediator to come into your home, observe your interactions and approaches to parenting, offer feedback and advice, and empower you to gain control over your family and your child’s behaviors.
Last week, I was contacted by Alice Gomstyn, a reporter from ABC News who was writing a story about Heath Ledger, who as you’ll recall from my article last week, died with an out of date Will that didn’t mention his daughter Matilda.
Alice’s article confirms what I’ve been saying all along … most lawyers are shockingly clueless when it comes to building meaningful relationships with their clients and making sure their clients’ estate plans will work when their families need them.
Attorney David A. Looney, a lawyer in Akron, Ohio, quoted in the article sadly represents the vast majority of lawyers out there who claim to have relationships with their clients, but when you look a little deeper what you really find is the mere preparation of form documents and nothing more.
It’s left up to the client to contact their lawyer when changes happen in their life or the law and as we’ve seen with Anna Nicole and Heath Ledger that far too often doesn’t happen.
I am keenly aware of this not only because my father in law died with an estate plan that left his assets owned improperly, but because I saw it in my own law practice when I first launched my business.
I’d talk a lot about relationship with my clients, but when I gave my business a good hard look, there was no relationship to be found - my clients signed their documents, took them home and didn’t think about estate planning again.
