Blog: News & Insights

When a minor child loses a parent, typically the surviving parent is the legal guardian of the child. That can leave the parents of the child’s deceased parent in the lurch when it comes to visitation. They want to maintain the relationship they have forged with their grandchild. The New Jersey statute can be found at NJSA 9:7.1. The liberty interest of the surviving parent to raise the...

If you’ve been appointed as the Guardian of the Property (Guardian of the estate) for an incapacitated person, you probably know that you have a lot of authority and power regarding the ward’s assets. While you do have to file an annual accounting in New Jersey as specified in the Judgment appointing Guardian (NJSA 3B:12-42), in general the New Jersey probate court does not...

The Special Needs Trust Fairness Act of 2015 ( S-349) would correct an error in OBRA ’93, which was a major revision to the Medicaid Act that allowed Medicaid applicants or recipients under age 65 to make penalty-free transfers of their assets or income into a first-party Special Needs Trust for their sole benefit. To qualify for the exemption, the Trust had to be established by a...

Governor Chris Christie has vetoed A-4233/ S-2435 , which means that NJ doctors treating Medicaid can’t get paid for counselling their patients on end of life planning. Perhaps he’s pandering to the absurd claims made in the 2008 Presidential election that by paying doctors to assist their patients to understand the treatment alternatives and choices about foregoing treatment at...

Countless news organizations have published articles concerning the Merit Systems Protection Board’s (MSPB) decisions reversing the demotions of Department of Veterans Affairs’ Senior Executive Service (SES) employees, Kimberly Graves and Diana Rubens.  While the decisions were covered by the press ad nauseam, no one has seen fit to provide link to the actual decisions. Remedy...

The week before this last big snowstorm, bulbs were pushing up shoots in my garden because it had been rainy and warm. I associate my mother with flowers. Today would have been her 87th birthday. I remember her standing in her backyard garden in shorts and a worn out t-shirt when she was 74, wearing her yellow gardening clogs that looked like Dutch “wooden shoes,” spade in hand and...

In the recent case of In the Matter of the Civil Commitment of D.E., a person who was committed to inpatient mental health care challenged her commitment and won because the hospital had not produced “clear and convincing evidence” of her being a danger to herself or others, despite a less than ideal discharge plan.  The appellate division took on the case despite the fact that she...

On January 29, 2016, recently appointed VA Under Secretary for Health, Dr. David Shulkin, held a conference between VHA leaders and finalists in a competition to present pitches for improvement to the Veterans Health Administration.  As identified in the link below , each finalist (I believe all VHA employees) presented “rapid-fire virtual pitches . . . similar to the television show...

Recently I got a call from the child of a client of mine who had just recently passed away. The child was panicky because they could not locate Mom’s Last Will and Testament. Mind you, this particular Mom was a very organized person. Bills were always paid on time; the house was meticulous; papers were looked at, dealt with, and either filed, scanned  or discarded. The Mom had reviewed...

On January 27, 2016, VA Secretary McDonald released a statement regarding the need to reform the appeals process for benefits under Title 38.  His statement can be downloaded at the following link: Statement from VA Secretary Robert McDonald On the Need to Reform the Veterans Appeals Process_January 27 2016 My takeaway: (1) this is the closest the VA has come to acknowledging that the agency...