Special Needs Planning
Legal issues that affect people with special needs are growing in number. Our laws and regulations are becoming more complex, and each state has different laws. Actions taken with regard to a single matter may have unintended legal effects.
Special Needs Planning encompasses many different fields of law. Some of these include:
- Disability planning, including use of durable powers of attorney, living trusts, “living wills”, for financial management and health care decisions, and other means of delegating management and decision-making to another in case of incompetency or incapacity
- Supplemental and long-term health insurance issues
- Tax Planning
- Special Needs Trusts
- Conservatorships and Guardianships
- Estate Planning, including planning for the management of one’s estate during life and its disposition on death through the use of trusts, wills, and other planning documents
- Probate and administration of estates
- Administration and management of trusts
- Retirement, including public and private retirement benefits, survivor benefits, and pension benefits
- Health law
- Mental health law
Most attorneys do not specialize in every one of these areas. So when an attorney says he or she practices Special Needs Law, find out which of these matters the attorney handles.
