Areas of Practice

 Estate Planning is as much about you expressing your preferences for who will receive your “estate” as it is about who will be your Agents when you can no longer direct your health, housing and financial decisions. If you were to sustain an injury or become diagnosed with an illness that resulted in a loss of your ability to manage your life, your written estate plan provides a roadmap for those who must step in to help. 

Guardianship is the appointment by a court of an individual or entity to make decisions for an incapacitated adult. Most adults can make their own decisions even if they are not good decisions, but an adult who has a condition that causes significant impairment in decision making is considered "incapacitated". 

Supported Decision-Making is part of Arizona's newest legislation. It is a process of supporting and accommodating an adult to enable the adult to make life decisions, including decisions related to where the adult wants to live, services available to the adult, support and medical care the adult wants to receive, whom the adult wants to live with, and where the adult wants to work, without impeding the adult's self-determination.

All of the information about Guardianship applies EXCEPT it refers specifically to an adult who is unable to manage his or her property or financial matters. A conservatorship is only needed if the Protected Person needs help managing money or property with a value of more than $10,000. 

 It is very expensive to pay for long term care. Long term care may be in the form of day programs, in-home care, assisted living centers, group homes, memory care centers or nursing homes. The ALTCS program is a welfare program designed to reduce the expenses of this kind of care. 

 Probate is a process to obtain the court’s authority to appoint a person or entity as the “Personal Representative” or “Executor” of the Estate of a deceased person.
How much court involvement there may be depends on the situation.

 When a person is receiving government assistance that is based on the individual’s income and/or assets, special care needs to be taken when planning for that individual.
The most common estate planning tool so that a person with special needs can inherit assets, is a special needs trust.