Trusts come in many “flavors”. They can be simple or complex, revocable or irrevocable, and handle issues related to incapacity, avoiding the court, special needs/disability planning, and minimizing potential estate tax due.   If written by an experienced attorney who carefully discusses  your wishes and desires, Trusts can be wonderful, pro-active, and incredibly helpful legal tools. 

  

Trusts reflect you: they protect you should you become ill or incapacitated, and ensure your assets pass to those you want.  That may be spouses, friends, family, generations not yet born, charities, special needs/disabled individuals, and even pets.

 

An experienced attorney, such as the McNamara Law Firm,

will discuss the options, and guide you through the many

decisions needed to have a personalized plan which will

ensure YOUR wishes are followed.  The result?  

Peace of mind for you and your family.

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Powers of Attorney

A power of attorney is a legal document giving another person

(the attorney-in-fact) the legal right (powers) to do certain things

for you. What those powers are depends on the terms of the

document. It is very important to have a comprehensive Power

of Attorney that will allow your Agent to properly and legally

handle the many issues and situations that may arise if you are incapacitated.

Health Care Documents (or Advance Directives)

An advance health care directive specifies the type of medical and personal care you would want should you lose the ability to make and communicate your own decisions. Anyone over the age of 18 may execute an advance directive, and this document is legally binding in California. Your advance directive can specify who will make and communicate decisions for you, and it can set out the circumstances under which you would not like your life to be prolonged if, for example, you were in a coma with no reasonable chance of recovery.

 

A document that goes hand-in-hand with your advance directive is an authorization to your medical providers to allow specified individuals to access your medical information (HIPAA Release). Without this authorization, your doctor may refuse to communicate with your hand-picked decision maker.