The numbers say that most American marriages end up in divorce. The numbers also say that most people do not think that their marriages will end up in divorce. That people do not normally think they will get divorced actually leaves some problems for estate plans because most people make their estate plans with the assumption that they will still be married to their current spouses when they pass away.

It’s a good thing that estate plans are made with the current spouse in mind. It’s a good thing that people do not anticipate getting a divorce. However, it is a bad thing if you do not realize that you need to update your estate plan if you do get divorced. If an ex-spouse is a part of your Will, then the law assumes that you meant to cut him or her out completely. That means that the laws of intestate succession will apply to the portion of your estate that you left to your ex-spouse. For many people, that means that their estate will be distributed as if they did not have a Will at all because everything was left to their ex-spouse.

If you do get divorced, make sure to take the time to update our estate plan. However, it is better planning to change your estate plan while your divorce is pending. Do you still want your soon to be ex-spouse making medical decisions for you? Do you want your soon to be ex-spouse handling your assets if you become incapacitated? The answer is “no!” The appropriate time to do something is while your divorce is pending.

John M. O’Drobinak, P.C.+ is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Our blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be advertising, solicitation or legal advice.

In today’s medical climate, the question really isn’t how long do you want to live, but do you really want to live when the only things keeping you alive are machines? Medical technology has come so far so fast that doctors can now keep people alive long past the point where most people would actually want to be alive if they thought about it beforehand. Machines can breath for you. Machines can feed you. Machines can even take over the functions of your heart.

Unfortunately, medical technology is advanced enough to keep your basic bodily functions going, but not yet advanced enough to get you out of the hospital or to keep your brain fully functioning when you are on life support. What do you want to happen if you can not live the life you want? Do you want doctors to keep you on support or would you rather that you be left to go? You can make the decision. But, it should be obvious that you need to make that decision when you are still capable of expressing your wishes.

A Living Will is a legal tool that you can use now to tell doctors what your wishes are later. Talk to an estate planning attorney about making a Living Will part of your estate plan.

John M. O’Drobinak, P.C.+ is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Our blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be advertising, solicitation or legal advice.

Do you remember Mad Libs? When we were younger, we could buy these books that had stories in them. Some of the words in the stories were left out. Readers were supposed to enter random words to complete the story. The results were often read out loud funny. When you purchase a form for your estate plan online, you are purchasing a Mad Lib. However, the results are often far from funny.

Estate plans are stories. They tell the tale of your life. They tell what you did and what assets you managed to accumulate. They say who your loved ones are. They say how you want to distribute your assets to your loved ones. Would you really want to leave that up to a Mad Lib? Just insert a random noun and complete the story? Of course you would not do that if you took the time to think about it. Instead, you would make sure that you had an estate plan that was carefully crafted from the ground-up to meet your unique needs and goals.

You can get an estate plan specifically designed for you. All that you need to do to get it is to hire an experienced estate planning attorney.

John M. O’Drobinak, P.C.+ is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Our blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be advertising, solicitation or legal advice.

Before visiting an estate planning attorney there are some things you should do to make your first visit with the attorney more productive. Consider these steps as pre-planning your estate plan.

1) Determine what assets you have. It’s not always as easy as you might think. Do you have personal property that is valuable? What about insurance policies? If your attorney knows what assets you have, then he or she will be better able to assist you.

2) Consider who you want to leave the assets to after you pass away. This might seem obvious, but it’s something that many people do not consider until after they meet with an estate planning attorney. Do you want everything you have to go to your spouse? Maybe you have children or grandchildren who you want to give to directly. It does not even have to be a family member. You can leave an inheritance for just about anyone you want.

3) Who do you want to be in charge? Take the time to think about appropriate people to administer your estate. You know the responsible people in your life better than the attorney knows them. This may be the most difficult decision you face.

With those steps you can go to a meeting with an estate planning attorney prepared to work with the attorney and make the right estate plan for you.

John M. O’Drobinak, P.C.+ is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Our blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be advertising, solicitation or legal advice.

When planning your Revocable Living Trust, it is a good idea to anticipate conflicts between Trust beneficiaries. People do not always agree about money, especially if they think someone else is mismanaging it. This sometimes leads to family fights over how a Trust is handled long after the creator of the Trust has passed away. In the worst cases, the conflicts can lead to litigation.

There are ways that you can help minimize conflicts over a Trust that you create. The single most important thing to do is to appoint an appropriate Trustee. You should pick someone responsible who will manage the assets appropriately. Beyond that, it is often a good idea to pick someone who all of the beneficiaries respect. Another way to minimize conflict over the trust is to make it amendable if certain circumstances occur. You cannot anticipate everything that will happen in the future. Making a Trust amendable ensures that it will still be useful when circumstances change.

Finally, you can often avoid litigation over the Trust by designating a Trust Protector. This is a person with the power to decide disputes when they occur. If a beneficiary has a conflict with the Trustee, the Trust Protector can decide who is right.

John M. O’Drobinak, P.C.+ is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Our blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be advertising, solicitation or legal advice.

Elder abuse is a real problem in the United States and unfortunately experts believe that it is happening more and more often. This might be the result of more people living longer so there is more opportunity for abuse. The elderly need to protect themselves and their estates from abuse.

A common form of elder abuse is to coerce an elderly person into changing estate plans to the benefit of the abuser. This is something that you can and should prevent from happening to you. Talk to an attorney before you become incapacitated. Let the attorney know what your plans are and why you have those plans. The attorney can draw up your plans and make sure that you have them in place. If you are later coerced into changing your plans, the attorney can let you know if you are making a mistake. Because you told the attorney about your goals, he or she can be on the lookout for potential abuses.

No one wants to think that he or she can be taken advantage of. However, as people age, this becomes a real possibility for everyone, even the most strong-willed people. Take the steps now so that you do not have problems later.

John M. O’Drobinak, P.C.+ is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Our blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be advertising, solicitation or legal advice.

Legendary artist Thomas Kinkade recently passed away. He left behind two Wills that have become the source of controversy between his girlfriend and his estranged wife and thus who gets his estate will have to be decided by a Probate Court.

The biggest problem is that Kinkade was a severe alcoholic and the Wills are handwritten. They are barely legible, but they appear to leave everything to his girlfriend. She, of course, insists that they are valid Wills and the artist’s wife disputes that claim. Under California law, Kinkade had the mental capacity to execute the Wills, despite his alcohol abuse. However, that leaves the question of which if any of the two Wills is valid. A handwriting expert has been brought in to determine if the Wills are Kinkade’s writing and which one he might have been less inebriated when writing.

It is still unclear what will happen with Kinkade’s estate. The lesson here is that you should never write your Will out by hand. Even if you properly execute the Will under state law, people need to be able to read it. Talk to an attorney about having a proper Will drafted. That will help clear up any questions that might arise later.

John M. O’Drobinak, P.C.+ is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Our blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be advertising, solicitation or legal advice.

It used to be that young attorneys stayed away from elder law. It was not something taught in most law schools other than a basic course on Wills and Trusts. So attorneys who wanted to practice elder law had to learn about it on their own after graduation. This discouraged young attorneys from entering the field.

However, with America’s aging population there is a great need for elder law attorneys and today young lawyers are stepping up to meet those needs. As reported in The Indiana Lawyer, many law schools in Indiana are stepping up and offering courses in elder law to serve their students’ desires to learn about the subject. This is great news for the people of Indiana as it means that new lawyers are now better prepared than ever to assist their elderly clients.

We would like to take this opportunity to applaud Valparaiso University Law School, Indiana University Maurer School of Law and Notre Dame Law School for offering courses in elder law. It is a great service for the people of Indiana. One of our newest firm members, Amy Nowaczyk, took the courses at Valparaiso and we are pleased that she was featured in the story in The Indiana Lawyer. Read about it and Amy in The Indiana Lawyer: http://www.theindianalawyer.com/embracing-elder-law/PARAMS/article/29042

John M. O’Drobinak, P.C.+ is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Our blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be advertising, solicitation or legal advice.

The chances are that if you hear or read something in the media about the Probate process, that you do not get the full story. This often leaves the general public with a distorted view of administering an estate through Probate. Consider the recent news about what happened while Probating Joe Paterno’s Will.

If you have not heard, Joe Paterno was the head football coach at Penn State who passed away shortly after a child sex abuse scandal involving a former assistant became public. Allegations were made that Paterno knew about the scandal and assisted in a cover-up. We might never know if that is true. However, there was enough media interest in the situation that Paterno’s estate became newsworthy and people wanted to know who he left has vast assets to.

In an unusual move, the Probate Court sealed Paterno’s Will, which denied access to it. Do not be mistaken into thinking that Probate Courts seal Wills regularly. This was the first such case in 18 months in the United States. Adding to the mystery, it was unclear which Judge made the Order. Finally, Paterno’s family released the Will to the public a few days later. There was nothing in the Will that gave any indication how Paterno’s estate was to be distributed because Paterno had a Living Trust, which the public does not have access to. That makes it even more unusual that the Will was sealed. That is all the more reason for using a Living Trust, your affairs are private, and not available to your relatives or anyone else.

John M. O’Drobinak, P.C.+ is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Our blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be advertising, solicitation or legal advice.

One of the worst things that can happen to anyone is to have one of their family members unduly influenced by a third-party to change their Wills and give less to family than to the third-party. Many of these Wills have a “no-contest” clause that states that anyone who challenges the validity of the Will inherits nothing under the Will. The question then becomes for the family whether they can and should challenge the Will at all.

Most people have little reason to avoid estate litigation for fear of a no-contest clause in a Will. If you have been completely cut out of the Will you believe was the result of undue influence, then the no-contest clause does not apply to you. The clause only applies to those who receive something from the Will itself. If you do receive something in the Will, but not the amount you thought you should, then whether you should challenge the Will becomes a more difficult question to answer. It depends on your reason for thinking the Will is invalid. In general, if you have probable cause to challenge a Will, then the Court will not apply the terms of the no-contest to you should you lose the challenge.

Remember though, some states have declared these types of clauses to be illegal.  Talk to an attorney about whether you should challenge a Will and whether you have probable cause to do so, or whether this clause is enforceable in your state.

John M. O’Drobinak, P.C.+ is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Our blog is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be advertising, solicitation or legal advice.