What is estate planning
and what is elder law?
And so I want to start
with explaining to you that
exact difference,
but when I say all this I do
want you to know that
I look at the difference between estate
planning and elder law possibly
very differently than other people
that call themselves elder law attorneys
do. So,
I don't want you to assume that just
because I tell you that this is the difference
between estate planning
and elder law that if you do
happen to work with another elder law attorney,
that they're going to have the same viewpoint
or are going to do things in the way
that we do them in our office.
And the reason is because elder
law is sort
of in the whole scheme of the different
types of law that there are out
there, it's a newer area
of law.
And so,
the way that we approach
elder law, the way that we look at
it, and the tools that we have at our disposal
as elder law attorneys can be
very different.
That being said,
this is the view of what I consider
to be the difference between estate planning
and elder law.
OK. So when we talk about
estate planning, specifically
I look at estate planning as
death planning.
What happens not
if,
but when we
die?
What happens when we die?
Who's going to get our stuff?
Who's going to be in charge of that process?
How can we make sure that
it happens as smoothly
and easily as possible?
That how do we do it in a way that avoids
any kind of tax consequences
or at least the least burdensome tax
consequences to the people that we care about?
How do we do it in a way
that doesn't cause
unintended consequences to
both our money
and the people that we care about?
That is estate planning in my view.
What happens not if
but when we die?
OK. And for some of you,
you might be saying well that's the whole reason that
I'm here Nicole.
That's what I want to know about.
I need to know about my estate planning options
because I'm just really concerned about
what happens to my stuff when I die.
That is important
and I don't want to discount
it. Of course it's important.
If you're watching this
and you think it's important then it's important.
I'm not here to tell you what's not important.
But let me also talk to you about
elder law.
And the thing is most people don't
understand what elder law is because like
I said it's sort of a newer area of practice.
Not all elder law attorneys do the same
thing, and it feels like a word,
you know a phrase that we understand
or that we know what it is,
but most people just don't really understand
what it means.
By the end of this presentation you're definitely
going to know what it means in its entirety from
my perspective,
but for right this moment,
I will tell you this,
Elder law,
specifically,
from our perspective
and from my perspective,
is about life planning.
So, elder law is about
what happens
if we get
older
and then we need care.
We need care
and we need to pay for
care because unfortunately
in the United States at this time
the issues related to
aging and needing care
are not something that generally get
paid for through what would be
traditional ways of paying
for what we consider medical things like
Medicare.
They are not being paid for by
through those sources I'm going to talk about that
a little bit more,
but elder law is really
about life planning,
what happens if we get older
and because of modern medicine,
because of the aging process,
because of what just what happens to people,
we need care.
How are we going to afford that?
That's Elder Law
and Elder Law planning.
And so from my perspective
in that respect then
life planning is really about
taking control.
Taking,
maintaining,
keeping control.
And control is such an important
thing to so many of our clients.
In fact, I would say that
the idea of losing control
is possibly one of the biggest
fears that our clients
have.
And that makes sense to me,
right?
I understand that the idea
that you might lose control is very
scary to you almost to the point
that you might not even want to think about it
or really have never considered it.
But let's talk about what
taking and keeping control
actually means.