USA Today:  “An infant is born with no functioning brain. A teen is ravaged in a car wreck. A 90-year-old with dementia and pneumonia lies unconscious in intensive care.  Medical and moral decisions must be made. But there's no written directive for guidance. Family and physicians disagree. What now?  Every day, in a hospital somewhere in the USA, a group of strangers — the hospital ethics committee — is called in to help people make the choices of a lifetime.”

The dark side of conservatorships.  Nashville Scene:  “Danny Tate wasn't in court in early December to plead for the return of his constitutional rights. He couldn't be — not unless he wanted to be handcuffed and thrown into a lockdown psychiatric ward at Vanderbilt University Medical Center a third time, or shipped to some out-of-state in-patient rehab.”

The Probate Lawyer Blog:  The trustee of Farrah Fawcett's trust, Richard “Francis sued Hollywood producer Craig Nevius accusing him of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from Fawcett's company and botching production of a television documentary showing her struggles with cancer.  Nevius is not taking the lawsuit lying down.”

Pamela J. Black wrote an article in which she discusses issues that arise when a person makes changes to a will or estate plan when the person is near death under circumstances that might lead to charges of undue influence.  The article states, A classic element of procurement of the will by someone who stands to benefit from it “is the situation where the child takes the parent to the child’s lawyer or a new lawyer and says, ‘Mom needs a new will, . . . That person presumably has benefited from the change and literally walked mom down the lawyer, who being new to the client won’t know something’s up.”

Forbes:  “Congress seems set to crack down on a popular strategy for cutting estate and gift taxes.  Tucked into a jobs and small business tax relief bill that the House is expected to vote on Wednesday are new restrictions on a popular estate planning strategy that has been used by, among others, the billionaire Walton family that founded Wal-Mart. The technique, known as a grantor retained annuity trust, or GRAT, allows rich families to pass on wealth while dramatically cutting their estate and gift tax bills.”

The Probate Lawyer Blog:  John Branca, and John McClain, the executors of Michael Jackson's estate, “just hit the mother-load. It was widely reported yesterday that they brokered a deal worth up to $250 million dollars (that's right — one quarter of a billion dollars!). . . . Yes that means that Branca and McClain earned $12.5 million each for one deal.”

New York Times:  “Business owners who do not form a succession plan create a time bomb that can not only destroy their companies but tear apart their families. ‘A lot of families fight and fight until the business is gone . . . It eats up everyone’s inheritances.'  Here are some suggestions to avoid a succession disaster:”

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Estate of actress Anna Nicole Smith gets nothing from the Estate of deceased billionaire J. Howard Marshall.  Anna rose to fame after she married the elderly billionaire in 1995 when they had an 84 year age difference.  See the court's opinion.

Law Practice Today has an article by Attorney Dennis Kennedy called “Estate Planning for Your Digital Assets.”  He says, “We are gradually, and grudgingly, learning that our online presence can outlive our physical presence and possibly even take on a life of its own. As we begin to move more of our activities—financial, social, work, leisure, creative—to the Internet, the questions about what happens to our online presence and how we best prepare to handle that have begun to grow in quantity and complexity.”

The Probate Lawyer Blog:  “The successful comedian and star of Sanford and Son ([Redd Foxx] whose real name was John Elroy Sanford) died October 11, 1991.  Apparently, the Estate has no assets.  Even if it did, there's an outstanding tax bill owed that's a bit hefty — a whopping $3.6 million as of the day he died.”  Despite the apparent lack of assets, there are people fighting over “nothing.”

The Trust Advisor Blog:  “With bank failures running at their highest level in nearly two decades, those holding fiduciary accounts may cause problems for advisors who recommend them should the bank fail.  Experts recommend wealth managers conduct due diligence before sending a client to a bank’s trust dept. . . . But until recently, relatively few people worried what would happen if fiduciaries started failing along with banks.”

The Washington Post has a story called “A Patient's Death Prompts a Doctor to Assess ‘Do Not Resuscitate' Orders,” in which a doctor whose patient died comments about patients and an important estate planning document called a “Do Not Resuscitate” or DNR.  The article is especially important for estate planning lawyers because it gives the doctor's perspective on DNR and another document called a “Do Not Intubate” or a DNI.  The story starts with the patient being admitted to the emergency room in critical condition and the doctor resuscitates and incubates and save the patient's life before learning that the patient had a DNR and a DNI.

Investopedia:  “Estate planning is more than simply having a will. It is a continuous planning process done to alleviate the financial impact of your death on those you leave behind. By spending just a few hours and dollars now, you can save your loved ones or beneficiaries from paying as much as a 55% estate tax. But a well-constructed estate plan may not only reduce the tax bill, but also help your loved ones understand, resolve and prepare for many of the issues that arise when settling an estate. We'll show you where to start.”

Bloomberg:  “Lobbyists for small businesses, construction companies, manufacturers and other trade groups are racing the clock to convince Congress to reinstate the federal estate tax they’ve fought for years to abolish.  The National Federation of Independent Business and more than 40 business organizations wrote Senate and House leaders last week asking for quick action on a proposed 35 percent levy on inheritances worth more than $10 million per couple.”

New York Times:  “For many people, estate planning is both a private matter and a morbid topic — not something that parents and their adult children want to discuss.  While having these conversations takes a lot of courage, they can help avoid surprises, lead to better financial planning and promote family harmony.”

Yahoo Finance:  “Given the relatively low interest rates and transfer tax values, and some Uncle Sam-sanctioned planning techniques, there is a window of golden opportunity, according to Steve Leimberg, the publisher of Leimberg Information Services Inc. and author of “Tools and Techniques of Estate Planning.”  The article discusses three estate planning concepts called tax basis consistency, valuation discounts and grantor retained annuity trusts (GRATs).

Forbes has a great article called “Americans Lack Basic Estate Plans.”  The story claims that despite the national attention given to the Terry Schiavo situation, most people do not have a living will, which is instructions to the healthcare providers that you do not want to be kept alive by artificial means if you are in a terminal condition or brain dead.

As an estate planning attorney, I often wonder and am asked what percentage of Americans have an estate plan?  Law.com conducted a national survey that answers the question.  Here are some of the findings of the survey: 35% have a will, down from 45% in 2007 18% have a trust, down from 31% in 2007 29% have a power of attorney (financial or healthcare), down from 46% in 2007 The biggest reason given for ignoring estate planning was the downturn in the economy.  People are more concerned about spending money on more immediate needs.  Here is the bottom line from the article: “There's a disconnect between public perception of the cost and complexity of creating estate planning documents and the straightforward, affordable choices that are

Financial Planning:  “When it comes to estate planning many advisors forget to talk about a client's cars. . . . ‘This is an area people forget about when it comes to estate planning,' says Kevin Transue, a certified financial planner with Heacock Financial, . . . . ‘The collectors don’t even tell their spouses what they paid for the car.  Nobody out there is talking about it or planning for it, so what typically happens is the cars sell at auctions, where they get bottom dollar and pay sellers’ fees'.”