Patti's Blog - Advocate for Elders, People with Disabilities and Their Families

Special Needs Trusts In The Context of Divorce

Excerpt from: Lawyers with Purpose (click for full article)

 

Many divorce attorneys are clueless about the impact on a client’s SSI and Medicaid eligibility of a marital property settlement, spousal support payments or child support payments. The incidence of divorce in families where a spouse or child has a disabling condition is almost twice that of families without such disabilities. Thus, it is imperative that we reach out to our Family Law brethren to advise them of Special Needs Trust planning in the context of divorce – well in advance of the negotiations that will yield the divorce settlement.

For purposes of SSI and Medicaid eligibility, direct receipt by the person with a disability of the following items constitutes “unearned income” which will reduce his SSI payment:

(i) non-exempt marital assets set aside as part of a property division;
(ii) spousal alimony or support payment in cash;
(iii) child support payments in cash.

World War III of Probate Litigation Embroils a Multitude of Law Firms

Excerpt from: The Recorder (click for full article)

 

When it comes to Herbalife, nothing seems to come without drama. Expensive, bitter drama.

Even as hedge fund titans wage a high-profile battle over the nutrition company and its finances, five law firms are heading to the First District Court of Appeal this month to wage a $3 million fee fight in what's been called the World War III of probate litigation.

On one side are business litigation firm Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp and solo practitioner Hillel Chodos. They're demanding payment for guarding the interests of Alexander Hughes, 21-year-old heir to a $400 million fortune bequeathed by Herbalife founder Mark Hughes, who died of an overdose in 2000.

On another side are the trustees, who say Mitchell Silberberg assigned 41 attorneys to the task of unseating them and failed. Even bringing in Chodos, who billed $1,000 an hour without keeping time records, didn't help their cause, say the trustees' lawyers at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. What's more, they contend that Mitchell Silberberg and Chodos never cared about young Alex's interests. In reality, Akin Gump says, they were doing the bidding of his mother and guardian, Suzan Hughes, who's trying to wrest control of the trust for her own purposes after obtaining some $14 million in a divorce settlement.

United We Stand: The Impact of Disabilities on Marriage

Excerpt from: The Jewish Press (click for full article)

 

There has been much made in the media about the stress on marriage and the high rates of divorce affecting couples who have a child with a developmental disability. Yet at the same time, counter studies have been published that refute many of these claims – reporting that this data has been exaggerated and that these families do not have a significantly higher divorce rate.

Which of these assertions is true?

In our experience working with families, we can certainly understand both perspectives.

There is undoubtedly an inordinate amount of stress placed on a marriage when a child has a disability, and we have seen marriages unravel before our eyes due to complications and stress that simply can’t be managed. When this happens, the consequences of divorce can be enormous and exponential: the financial pressures, stress of single-parent caregiving, impact on the child with a disability who has an even harder time managing change; as well as effects on the typically developing children who are already coping with having a sibling with special needs.

Yet we have also seen couples who parent a child with a disability with marriages that are incredibly strong: couples who “have each other’s backs,” who understand the unique pressures they each face and provide support to one another as they meet them. We have seen couples with an extraordinary level of emotional closeness that is fostered by the all-encompassing challenge that is caring for a child with special needs.

Don’t Spy on Your Cheating Spouse

Excerpt from: Lawyers.com (click for full article)

 

Unexplained absences, furtive phone calls, mysterious credit card charges — there are all kinds of clues that a spouse may be having an affair. However, one piece of detective work that partners who think they’ve been cuckolded should not undertake is to intercept their spouse’s electronic communications, or stick a GPS transmitter on his or her car.

With a plethora of technological options making it ever-easier to catch cheating lovers in the act, suspicious spouses need beware of taking the spy games too far and violating state or federal law as a result.

A recent Wall Street Journal story chronicles men who crossed a line trying to keep tabs on their wives and were convicted of stalking, invasion of privacy and violations of the federal Wiretap Act, which bans interception, disclosure or use of electronic communications acquired through the use of a “device.”

Real Ex-Wife of Beverly Hills to Pay $4 Million for Spying on Children

Excerpt from: Lawyers.com (click for full article)

 

A real – not reality show – ex-wife of a Beverly Hills billionaire has been ordered by a jury to pay $4 million for spying on her ex’s three children and personal assistant.

Jacqueline Colburn, who was 38 when she married 85-year-old billionaire philanthropist Richard Colburn, was accused of wiretapping hundreds of private calls by her husband and his three children in order to get a leg up in her divorce.

The couple was divorced in 2002 and Richard died in 2004.

Only years later did his children and a personal assistant discover they had been wiretapped when someone emailed them a New York Times article about a rogue private eye named Anthony Pellicano, convicted of conspiracy, wiretapping and other charges and sent to federal prison for 15 years. Their names appeared in the article as victims of Pellicano’s illegal spying.

In the children’s lawsuit for invasion of privacy, they claimed that their former step-mom paid Pellicano in cash and jewelry to bug their phones with a software program called TeleSleuth, and to listen to calls going in and out of the home for nearly a year.