Elder Law & Special Needs Section Blog | Elder Law and Special Needs Section

This blog focuses on protecting the rights of the elderly and individuals with disabilities, and  provides advice, information and advocacy in areas relating to the legal issues that affect their lives. Published by the State Bar of Wisconsin's Elder Law and Special Needs Section.

Members of the State Bar of Wisconsin may join the section by visiting https://www.wisbar.org/formembers/groups/pages/join-a-group.aspx (login required).

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By: Elder Law and Special Needs Section | State Bar of Wisconsin

Blog Authors

State Bar of Wisconsin
Paul A. Sturgul
Bruce A. Tammi
Jessica Ann Liebau
Peter B. Harbach
Heather B. Poster
Cale Battles
Peter E. Grosskopf
Jon Fischer
Andrew G. Falkowski
Gregory J. Banchy
Jeffery J. Drach
Carol J. Wessels
Hamza Jaka
Amy K. Greske
KC Kratochvill
Amy M. Burger
Iris M. Christenson
Corinna Martell
Meghan McAllister Teigen
Tiara Oates
Benjamin S. Wright
Benjamin Scott Wright
Julia Veenendaal
Reg Wydeven

Latest from Elder Law & Special Needs Section Blog | Elder Law and Special Needs Section

This year has been a busy one for me, and I’m not alone. Every elder law and special needs attorney I know is busy. The demand for our services is always increasing, the supply of our time ever scarce. Admittedly, being too busy is a good problem to have – but a problem nonetheless. A Packed Agenda is a Wellness Problem When your calendar looks like the master caution panel on
Apollo 13, it’s stressful. It takes time away

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Continue Reading Saying No to New Clients: How Elder Law Attorneys Manage Their Workloads

I retired from the full-time practice of law on July 1, 2019. I first wrote about what I have been doing since then in the December 2020 Elder Law and Special Needs Section Blog. It is sometimes hard for me to believe that five years have passed since then. Here is a summary of some of my activities during this time.
Paul A. Sturgul Paul Sturgul,
U.W. 1973, is of counsel with Sturgul & Long, S.C., in Hurley, and though

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Continue Reading Contested Guardianships, Advocacy, and a Podcast: A Lawyer’s Unexpected Retirement Journey

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It is the initial consultation: A daughter and a son come in. Dad passed away nine years ago, and their mom just recently passed. They brought in the binder with the estate planning documents. There was a will for mom and dad. (Dad’s original will had not been filed at the courthouse). The revocable trust was 20 years old. They brought in the deed for the house, showing that mom and dad owned the real estate as joint tenants.

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Continue Reading Why Estate Plans Fail – and How Attorneys Can Prevent It

There’s potential money out there for wartime veterans and the surviving spouses of wartime veterans through the Veterans Affairs Improved Pension.
Peter Harbach headshot Peter Harbach, Marquette 2008, is a partner with Hooper Law Office in Appleton, where he focuses on elder law.

I want to encourage attorneys who practice in elder law to consider becoming accredited with the Department of Veterans Affairs, because there are about 330,000 veterans and only 44 accredited attorneys in our state. Program Basics Although not

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Continue Reading Saving Private Ryan's Nest Egg: The Veteran Improved Pension Program

You might say
Avery Mayne’s first elder law client was her law review, the
Marquette Elder’s Advisor. As editor-in-chief her 3L year, she found herself fighting for its existence. “It was probably my first experience doing some real advocacy,” she told me. Mayne has built on that experience to continue advocating for those whose welfare is threatened. I’m interviewing elder law attorneys around the state to find out why and how they started practicing elder law, what

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Continue Reading Helping the Underdog: Avery Mayne and her Elder Law Practice

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My mother gave me a plate for mounting on my office wall quoting the line from William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 2. It has been on all my law office walls and now is in my office at home after I recently closed my law office.

The story began for me in the summer of 1976. I had just graduated from Marquette University Law School, after which I backpacked through Europe with a law school classmate for six weeks.

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Continue Reading Shakespeare's Classic Line about Lawyers, the Gatekeepers to Democracy

Wisconsinites and their attorneys now have a new legal process for remote notarization and witnessing of estate planning documents. The new law, 2023 Wisconsin Act 130, took effect March 23, 2024. While the new law provides greater flexibility for estate planning clients and their attorneys in the post-pandemic world, it causes additional dilemmas for attorneys, particularly those who represent the elderly and individuals with disabilities.
Heather Poster headshot
Heather Poster, Marquette 2002, is an attorney and shareholder with
Becker, Hickey &

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Continue Reading The Good, Bad, & Ugly of Wisconsin’s New Remote Notarization and Witnessing Law

This article is the first in a new series: I’m interviewing elder law attorneys around the state to find out why and how they started practicing elder law, what their practices are like, and what they achieve for their clients.

My first interview is with Blaine Patino of Canellos & Patino in Wauwatosa. Blaine was recently a presenter at the Winter Workshop put on by the Wisconsin chapter of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA).

I

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Continue Reading ‘A Little Rebellious:’ Blaine Patino and his Elder Law Practice

The immeasurable benefits of a healthy work-life balance are well known. Engaging with outside organizations, taking time for personal interests and hobbies, spending time with family and friends, exercising, gardening, caring for pets, traveling – all of these are ways in which we can help our bodies, minds, and souls stay fresh for our law practices and our clients. Additionally, we can learn a lot from our out-of-office activities that help us as attorneys.

In my working life, I

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Continue Reading March Madness: How Basketball Can Help You Be a Better Attorney

As a longtime estate-planning attorney, it is my sense that more clients are working around (or ruining) their valid estate plans by using various nonprobate transfers – specifically POD (Payable on Death) and TOD (Transfer on Death) designations. I see this change happening not only when clients come into my office to review their estate planning when they are alive, but this is also being discovered after the client passes away. I ask “Why is this happening?” Do people just dislike attorneys so

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Continue Reading This Is How Clients Wreck Their Estate Plans – What Can Attorneys Do About It?

Let’s start with the assumption that you want to have a multicultural law practice with a focus on estate planning and Medicaid planning – and you want to work with clients and staff who are diverse. How are you going to move forward with those objectives?

Is being multicultural enough?

Is it possible to complete the necessary estate planning forms and Medicaid applications with a good understanding of the client’s current financial status and plans regarding the person’s finances? 

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Continue Reading Do You Have a Multicultural Law Practice?

COVID-19, the job market, and now inflation consume us. Older Americans and those with disabilities are more drastically affected by all three, especially due to the consistent need for quality caregiving services in an unstable economy.

In January 2019, a Harvard Business School Report compelled the country to acknowledge the “caregiving shortage crisis,” which has only worsened post the pandemic. Millions of seniors and people with disabilities require long-term services and support, and most want these services at

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Continue Reading Drafting Caregiver Agreements that Combat the Caregiving Crisis

Many of us became attorneys because our reaction to math was “Ugh, not if I can avoid it!”

Not to say any of us are bad at math, but after years of watching lawyer dramas, we didn’t exactly envision our legal careers involving intricate spreadsheets of income and asset classes, monthly care costs, divestment divisors, and so forth.

However, providing the best guidance to our clients often requires exactly that: a deep dive into what puts the client and

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Continue Reading Basic Math in Elder Law

One of the many things I have appreciated about becoming an attorney is working with people who care deeply about the clients they serve and the work they do.

It is a great honor to watch attorneys meet with clients, listen, and do their best to make clients feel comfortable. That includes working with disabled clients, who are often dealing with substantial barriers, ableism, and disrespect.

However, even though lawyers are making strides in accommodating individual clients, our systemic

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Continue Reading Accessible Content Broadens Your Client Base and Improves the Way You Work

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Established in 2003, Wispact, Inc., is a private nonprofit organization that maintains and administers pooled special needs trusts for nearly 4,000 individuals with disabilities throughout Wisconsin. What Is a Pooled Trust? A pooled special needs trust (PSNT) is a type of trust arrangement where there is one master trust document that details the pertinent definitions, powers, and duties that control all the sub-accounts created under it. A sub-account is created under a PSNT when a beneficiary or

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Continue Reading Wispact at a Glance

As elder law and special needs planning attorneys, many of us are involved in what might be considered “extracurricular” work activities – i.e., all those things we do that flow directly from the profession we have chosen.

We serve on boards. We volunteer for nonprofits and organizations. We advocate for causes that are important to us. We coordinate with other groups and professionals who help serve our clients. We identify gaps in the systems we work with, and daydream

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Continue Reading Elder Law Lawyers: There’s a Grant for You