Marin Estate Planning Seminar | Elder Law Seminar | San Francisco

Essential Estate Planning and Elder Law Seminars

I regularly speak to community and professional audiences about Estate Planning, Elder Law, and Retirement Living topics. If you have a group who could benefit from a short, introductory talk or perhaps a longer, hands-on workshop, please contact me. I'm happy to create a talk that suits your particular audience.

Estate Planning 101 – What You Need to Know

This seminar is an introduction to the basics of estate planning, including why it’s so important to make a plan, how to choose the right individuals to serve as your successor trustees and healthcare agents, planning for your blended family, and the delicate task of passing on your wealth to your children and grandchildren in ways that encourage, rather than dampen, their own independence and achievement.

When You Care Enough - Advance Health Care Directive and California's New POLST

No one likes to talk about dying, but failing to inform your loved ones about how you want to be cared for at the end of your life is unkind. The absence of clear instructions will leave your family feeling unsure and guilty. This is not a doom-and-gloom talk, but an entertaining and informative look at how your Advance Health Care Directive and California's new POLST can give your family real peace of mind that they are making the best possible end-of-life decisions on your behalf.

Life Happens - Planning for Incapacity

The biggest worry today isn't death, it's dementia. Who will manage your personal care and finances if you become incapacitated? Learn about the early warning signs and how best to protect yourself and your family by planning ahead.

3 Things Business Owners Must Know About Estate Planning

If you own your own business, what happens if you become incapacitated or die? Your family, your partners, and your employees depend on you. What's your plan?

Staying Put, Moving On

Whether you want to stay in your own home, move closer to your children, or move into a retirement community, this seminar will help you consider all of your options. Is your present home and neighborhood appropriate for aging in place? What will it cost? What resources are available to help you stay in your home? What can you do now to prepare for your future? What retirement communities are available in the Bay Area? How do they differ? What should you know about continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs) and the different kinds of continuing care contracts?

The Real Cost of Retirement Living

This seminar will give you the facts about retirement living options. There are so many choices. Should you buy, buy-in, or rent? What are the age, health and financial qualifications for admission? What are the monthly fees? What services are included? What portion of the fee is tax-deductible? How does long-term care insurance fit in? What are the consequences for your estate?

"“The past beats inside me like a second heart.”
― John Banville, The Sea (2005)

My younger brother and I spent summers with my dad's mother and our cousins in East Texas (“God’s Country”). My grandmother, Eula Brent Click, was the youngest of 13 children. She taught school in a one-room schoolhouse in Pennington. Rumor has it that she was quite an independent woman for her time, and she married late.

My grandmother was widowed during the Depression. She raised my father and his two older sisters alone, managed the family farm and business in Lovelady, and worked hard to put her kids through Huntsville State Teachers College.

Miss Eula embodied all of the "old-time" virtues - honesty, thrift, simplicity, plainspokenness. She could size you up over the rim of her coffee cup in an instant - and she could spot a lie a mile off. Steeped in the idiom of the King James Bible, she valued good writing, and she could tell a good story and laughed hardest at a good joke.

To be wasteful was a terrible thing. She made play clothes and sun bonnets for me out of calico chicken-feed sacks. She tended a large garden and raised cows and chickens to feed her extended family. She always washed and reused the tinfoil.

Family and church were the two touchstones of her life. There was always someone extra at the table - an aunt, cousins, a visitor - whether for coffee (boiled and tar-black) or dinner. Baptisms and graduations and weddings and funerals punctuated the years. No matter the occasion, there was always plenty of food and storytelling, both of which are competitive sports in my family.

My grandmother taught Sunday School until she was 90. Almost every week she'd pack a food basket for someone who was ill or having a hard time, and we'd drop it off after church. When she was older, nephews and neighbors and church members stopped in to check on her, carry the mail up from the highway, bring her a meal, or help with things around the house, all of which allowed her to live at home until the last year of her life.

I love hearing people's stories - the experiences of a lifetime that shape us all, one way or another. Estate planning, at least in part, is about sharing our legacies and our precious stories with our children and grandchildren.

A longtime friend asked me to help his friend, Harry, a man in his 60s, whose cancer had returned after many years in remission. Harry had worked in the healthcare industry for many years, and he had no illusions about his prognosis and inevitable death. Over the next few weeks, we talked about what he most feared and most hoped for, and how best to ensure that his wishes would be respected.

Together, we created a detailed Advance Health Care Directive, with specific instructions about his end-of-life care, including provisions for spiritual care. We discussed Harry's choices with his adult children, so everyone understood exactly what Harry wanted and why. We also planned for his eventual mental incapacity, so that his children could take care of his financial and personal affairs. Finally, we prepared a revocable trust and pourover will to simplify how his estate would be handled after his death. As he signed the final documents, Harry told me how relieved he felt to have settled everything so that he could focus on being with his children in what time remained.

A few months later Harry died peacefully at home with his youngest son - which was just what Harry wanted.

Seven years ago, Mr. D asked me to help him with his Will. He had never married, and he wanted to leave everything to his favorite nephew in Southern California. Mr. D had lived for decades in a rent-controlled apartment in San Francisco, where he knew everyone in the building by name. While talking with him about his Will, I learned that he recently had suffered a bad fall and was often dizzy. He was having difficulty carrying groceries up the hill to his building, and he wasn’t eating well. It was clear that he was becoming more and more isolated and forgetful.

When I asked Mr. D if he would like to visit some assisted living facilities, he reluctantly agreed. After seeing several facilities in the City, we headed across the Golden Gate Bridge to Mill Valley. It was love at first sight. He chose an apartment overlooking a garden with a beautiful view of Mt. Tam. Despite some initial complaints, within a few weeks, Mr. D was eating regularly and entertaining new friends with his wonderful stories. He even joined the chorus. He knew everybody (and their children and grandchildren) and everybody knew Mr. D. In this safe and supportive environment, Mr. D thrived.