As a part of your estate planning, one of the most important documents you can put in place is what is known as a healthcare power of attorney. A power of attorney simply gives another person the legal authority to act on your behalf. A healthcare power of attorney designates who will make medical decisions for you if you are incapable of making them yourself. You can set up the healthcare power of attorney so that it automatically goes into effect under certain circumstances, or you can require … [Read more...]

Plan to Protect Digital Information after Your Death Think of all the various places you have information online—Facebook and other social media accounts; online banking, memberships, Amazon.com and other retail accounts, your e-mail, everything you have in the cloud. What happens to all of that when you die? Who has access and who can get access? How can you prevent your loved ones from getting a computer-generated message from a social media account to wish you a happy birthday…long after … [Read more...]

Why You Want to Have a Medical Directive If you are young and healthy, you may not think it's necessary to establish who will make medical decisions for you in the event of injury or illness. You may believe that setting up an advance medical directive is only for the old or the infirm. You are wrong. The reality is that tragedy can strike at any time, and can affect anyone. If you don't put a clear process in place to allow someone else to make your medical decisions when you cannot, you … [Read more...]

Plan to Protect Digital Information after Your Death Think of all the various places you have information online—Facebook and other social media accounts; online banking, memberships, Amazon.com and other retail accounts, your e-mail, everything you have in the cloud. What happens to all of that when you die? Who has access and who can get access? How can you prevent your loved ones from getting a computer-generated message from a social media account to wish you a happy birthday…long after … [Read more...]

Making the Best of Your Final Days In our culture, where longevity is often valued far more than quality of life, many individuals spend their last days undergoing medical procedure after medical procedure, enduring the endless and inevitable cycle of hope and despair. Often, the patients are not the ones making the decisions—loved ones pull out all the stops believing they are acting in everyone's best interests. There is, however, an option. You can put together an "end of life" plan that … [Read more...]

Should You Tell Your Children What's In Your Estate? Most of us don't like to contemplate our own deaths, a factor that many lawyers and estate planners say keeps people from taking measures to protect themselves and their heirs. But even if you have put an effective estate plan in place, you may be reluctant to discuss the details with your children or other potential beneficiaries. Experts, though, assert that it's in the best interests of everyone involved to have open and candid discussions … [Read more...]