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Topics covered:
- Legal Tip of the month – Beneficiary Designations
- Review of the National Institute for Domestic Partner Estate Planning Seminar
- Consumer Responsibility is as Important as Corporate Responsibility
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I was asked to speak about Financial Empowerment for Men at the Infinity Diamond Club’s We are One conference in Durham. While a lot of the discussion focused on different kinds of finances, we also laid out the basics of a good life and estate plan. As we went through different topics, I was struck by the big misconceptions out there regarding finances and what we are “supposed to do” for retirement and, eventually, inheritance.
Last week I had the privilege to talk to an independent study group of 3rd year law students at Duke Law about LGBT Law, and particularly about life and estate planning for domestic partners. While it has been almost 17 years since I graduated from law school, it was a big reminder that law school provides a lot of legal information and “trains the brain,” but it actually does very little to teach students the practical areas of law and being an attorney. As I looked back on my years of law school versus my years as an attorney, I had a few observations:
It’s extremely easy for me as the attorney to recommend how assets should be retitled or beneficiaries changed on accounts so they work with a revocable trust to avoid probate. All real estate, bank accounts, brokerage accounts, mutual funds, and even life insurance should be retitled in the name of the trust. Beneficiaries on life insurance policies should also be changed to name the revocable living trust as the beneficiary. But retirement accounts are not that easy because there are income tax consequences. Unless there is a specific reason otherwise, spouses will name each other as the primary beneficiary. The contingent beneficiary is where we have to make decisions. And it is shocking how many times this is wrong.
This is Part One of an extensive article on Medicaid family planning. In trying to address the problems of families losing everything they worked their whole lives for just to qualify for Medicaid, Mr. Marsocci is conducting workshops to show people that they don’t have to go broke to qualify for Medicaid. For more information on these events, please go to www.MedicaidWorkshops.com.
The Human Rights Campaign and state equality groups, legislators and protestors, and businesses and individuals have struggled to build a country of equality that includes members of the LGBT community. But constructing this home big enough to include all of us has taken a lot of time. And like the Winchester House, every twisting and turning staircase can lead to dead ends, locked doors, and enough construction that it seems the work will never end. Court decisions, legislative edicts, and lobbying at all levels of government have become the foundation of this huge house we are building. What seems to be lost in constructing protests, electing equality architects to public office, and fighting a homophobic zoning board is that each partner can build their own houses of equality with tools already available to them.
Estate Planning Concepts in 2011: A practical course on the concepts of life and estate planning in light of the 2011-2012 estate tax laws with an emphasis on explaining these concepts to clients; attorneys and financial advisors working together on achieving client goals; and the merits, disadvantages and techniques of IRA Trusts, Family Limited Partnerships, and the Perpetual Family Legacy Trust ™.
The Law Offices of Jeffrey G. Marsocci, PLLC was pleased to accept the City of Raleigh’s Human Relations Business Award last night at a banquet held at the Sheraton Raleigh. Jeffrey G. Marsocci and former publishing assistant Lauren Burianek accepted the award on behalf of the law firm. Unfortunately, Kathleen Marsocci was unable to attend [...]
This past week I reviewed a pair of trusts for a couple and had to shake my head in disgust. All of the horrible things my clients say about the legalese in their documents was readily apparent in these trusts created by a law firm in New York City. Typically I have to defend the legal language in documents because while legalese is hard for the non-attorney to sort through and it sounds convoluted, it is actually very precise and eliminates loopholes.
Not here. This sounded like it was written by Yoda on meth. Sections referred back to other sections so frequently that it was a legal jigsaw puzzle to be put together just to read a paragraph or two in context.
I recently had a chance to team up with a good friend Ashley Hedges to relaunch a book project to benefit children worldwide. The Six Cents Initiative is a Circle K project to raise funds for clean drinking water. One of the ways we are fundraising for this project is through the sale of a book called Live to Serve, Love to Serve, and it is a collection of service stories from members of the Kiwanis Family. This book is now on sale at www.sixcentsbook.com, and all proceeds go to UNICEF. Here’s a message from Ashley sent to the members of Circle K International.