Your Cornwall Lawyer on Cornwall Tonight With Amanda Logan Speaking About Why and How to Appoint Guardians For Your Children

I was recently on Cornwall Tonight with Amanda Logan and Cogeco TV Cornwall was gracious enough to post a clip of my interview with Amanda. Check it out at the Cogeco site here, or on You Tube here.

The video will give you a quick idea of what many of my seminars are like, but it also gives parents an idea of why and how to appoint guardians for their children. I hope you enjoy it.

What You Need To Know About School Emergency Contact Forms

It’s back to school time. The kids should be settled by now in school and their extra-curricular activities are starting up again.

Along with the new school year comes all the forms and contact sheets and other information you need to give to your child’s school or day care provider. I wanted to share this article by my colleague, Danielle G. Van Ess, that discusses what might happen if those forms are ever used. Her original post appears here.

Danielle and I do estate planning thousands of miles apart but our approach is very similar. For parents of young children, both of us recommend naming temporary guardians (among other things!).

In Ontario, the only way to appoint a guardian of your children is by a Will.

In my practice, I have developed a designation form for parents who are doing Wills and Powers of Attorney or trusts with me to appoint temporary guardians. There is no law in Ontario that says parents can do that, but as a mom myself, I want the people I trust to take care of my children to have a a signed, witnessed and notarized document giving them authority to care for my children if my husband and I are in an accident.

I give the temporary guardian form to the parents and to the people they have appointed so that if emergency strikes, everyone knows what to do and who is to take care of the children. I also recommend that caregivers and schools be provided with a copy of the form so they know who to contact.

Thankfully, none of my forms have ever been used (because that would mean something horrible would have happened to a client), but my hope is that in an emergency, the authorities will respect the designation made by the parents and the children of my clients will always be with people they know, love and trust.

Read on to find out more from Danielle.

What You Need To Know About School Emergency Contact Forms

by Danielle G. Van Ess

If your child is starting preschool, daycare, or elementary school, you’ve probably already been asked to complete the school’s emergency contact form.  The school will release your child to your emergency contact in the event of an emergency, but would that form be sufficient if the emergency lasted more than a couple hours?  None of us wants to think about it, but if we should happen to be involved in a serious accident, would our neighbors who kindly offered to serve as a temporary emergency contact on that school form be legally empowered to care for our children overnight?  What about for a couple days or even a week?  Would we want to ask them to do so and would they want to accept that kind of burdensome responsibility for our children, particularly in a time of crisis for our children?

If you have already legally named temporary emergency guardians for your minor children, you should provide a copy of that legal instrument to your child’s school along with their emergency contact form. You should also be sure your child’s named emergency guardians have copies in their possession to bring with them if possible if they are ever called upon to serve that way.  You should also have documentation in your possession and on your person at all times alerting emergency responders to the fact that you have minor children and directing them to contact the named guardians with legal authority to care for the children.  Finally, you need to provide information in a readily accessible format and keep it in a handy place and discuss with all of your children’s caregivers whom to call and in what order in the event of an emergency.

Perhaps that sounds like overkill or a bit daunting but I assure you it’s really very simple.  And just consider the minimal extra effort required on your part to avoid the possibility of your children being temporarily placed in the care of the Department of Children and Families (a/k/a “DCF” or “the agency formerly known as DSS” a/k/a CPS).

That’s why this comprehensive temporary emergency planning for minor children is part of every estate plan I create with my clients.  This is my focus and my passion; it’s taking my motherly perspective and applying it to the estate planning context.

If you have any questions or concerns about protecting your minor children in the event of an emergency no matter where you or they are, please email me (dgve@dgvelaw.com) or call (781) 740-0848.

Wishing you and your children a wonderful start to the new school year!

Danielle’s original post appears here.

Are You Planning On Getting Hit By A Bus?

As you know, I do estate planning, which means I talk to clients about what might happen should they die or become incapacitated.

For some reason, the phrase “So, if I get hit by a bus tomorrow …” tends to come up quite often during my conversations with clients. Realistically speaking, many of my clients will have no need for their estate planning documents until they are well into their old age, so some of the things we plan for will never actually happen.

But we do plan for them because, you never know, you just might get hit by a bus some day. And if you did, what would happen?

I’ve been thinking about this for a few days from a few different angles.

The first is that my husband was at a work meeting and one of the topics was planning for succession at his place of work. The complaint was that there was not formal training to mentor those employees who might eventually move up the ladder, so to speak.

When my husband and I talked about that, I said that yes, there needs to be a plan for when people retire, but also, you need to think about people getting hit by a bus (see, it comes up often!). What would happen if an employee/supervisor/manager didn’t show up for work one day? Would people know what he was working on? Could things be picked up where they were left off? Is there essential information about the work place that only that individual knows? These are all things that every work place needs to consider.

See, the thing is, I actually know someone who got hit by a bus. When I worked in Ottawa, it happened. One of the IT employees was walking to work and was struck. He was conscious and so he was able to make a phone call. His first phone call was not to his family, but to his supervisor at work! Thankfully he was ok, but what would have happened if he wasn’t?

Another reason I have been thinking about this is because I knew I was attending a meeting last week and the presentation topic was succession planning for business owners.

It was a great presentation on a topic so many business owners tend to ignore or delay their decision making (sometimes until it is too late). The statistics back me up on this one – according to an October 2006 study by the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses, over 65% of small and medium sized business owners were intending to retire within 10 years. Of all business owners surveyed, only 10% had a formal plan to exit the business. Some had an informal plan, but over 50% of business owners had no plan at all!

Thinking about your death isn’t exactly fun. But we all have a 100% chance of dying. Hopefully, we won’t get hit by a bus tomorrow (or any day) but it is much easier to plan for it now than to leave our families, our work places and our businesses to pick up the pieces if we don’t have a plan.

4 Simple Steps For Dealing With Any Emergency

Imagine your child or spouse is injured accidentally at home – would you know what to do?

This past weekend, clients of mine (who are also my Facebook friends) posted about their son being injured in an accident. He will be ok, but my heart was instantly in my throat, thinking about the family and about the times I have had to rush my children to the hospital or call an ambulance (for my child or someone else). I can count the number of times this has happened on one hand, but I remember each situation vividly.

Just so we are all clear, I am horrible in a crisis when it involves my own family. I am a bumbling mess of tears. If it were your crisis, I would be calm, cool and collected and I would know exactly what to do. I’m going to need to take some of my own advice here.

So, do you know what you need to do in an emergency?

First of all, if you are calling 911 and emergency personnel needs to get to your house, can you give directions? What side of the street is your house on? Are the numbers visible? I have lived in rural areas for most of my adult life and it is not necessarily easy to get to where I have lived.

I remember saying one time when I called an ambulance because my daughter had a febrile seizure and had turned blue, “well, I think there is a tree in front of the sign where you turn onto our street, but it is the first right.” Um, not necessarily helpful but at least I had it together enough to remember that. Being able to give detailed directions on how to locate your house can save valuable time when emergency personnel are trying to get to you.

Think about how to get to your house and how to give accurate instructions, and make sure you know the answers. Also, if you ever have a baby sitter or house sitter, make sure they know your address and, ideally, proper instructions on how to get there.

Also, if you call 911 and are giving first aid to someone, make sure the door is unlocked so emergency personnel can get in. If extra people are around, have them wait at the end of the driveway (or road) to signal emergency vehicles.

If your spouse, partner or child had to go to the hospital, would you be able to tell medical personnel what medications they are on and in what dosage, who their family doctor is, what medical conditions they have, any allergies, and what surgeries they have had? Sounds easy enough, but I have been asked all of those questions and have not known the exact answer for all of them.

And what if you were injured? Do the people who would be caring for you know the answers to those questions about you? What about the people who might care for your children if something happens to you? Would they know the answers? At Allinotte Law Office, as part of my process when doing estate planning for parents, we prepare a document with parents that contains all this important information for the potential caregivers of their child(ren).

This isn’t just about people either. If your pet had an emergency, you would need to know when they were born, what shots they have had and when, and the date of any surgeries they have had.

Some things in general to remember in an emergency:

1.  Take deep breaths to calm down and make sure you are getting enough oxygen. If you can’t calm down, get help immediately.

2.    2. Figure out what you need to do and do it. Take a moment to look at the options and make a plan and then do it.

3.    3. Call 911 or your local emergency as soon as you have done what you can do. If you are not alone, someone should call the emergency number immediately, before you go through items 1 and 2.

4.    4. Relax. There is not much else you can do after you have called 911. Keep breathing deeply so you don’t freak out.

Of course, emergency first aid training will always be helpful in an emergency situation. Consider getting some basic first aid and CPR training to help be more prepared.

5 Things to Know Before Hiring a Personal or Business Lawyer

Before hiring a personal or business lawyer to guide you, your family or your business, ask these 5 questions to ensure that you don’t end up paying a whole lot of money for services that are not what you need, expect or want.  Hiring an attorney does not have to be a fearful experience.  Instead, it can be the most empowered decision you ever make for yourself.

1. How do you bill for your services?

There is no need to be afraid to talk with your lawyer about how he/she bills for the work they will do on your behalf.  In fact, when you first call a lawyer’s office, this is one of the very first questions you should ask.  No one wants surprises!

If when you call the attorney’s office, they will not give you any information about how they charge for their services or any expectation of what things will cost, beware you could be in for some big surprises about what things cost down the road.

Look for a lawyer who bills all of their services on a flat-fee, project basis and never on an hourly basis, unless required to by the Court for limited purposes.  In every event, be sure the lawyer you choose promises to never send you an unexpected bill in the mail for quick phone calls or emails.

2. How are you able to be responsive to my needs on an ongoing basis?

One of the biggest complaints people have about working with a lawyer is that lawyers are notorious for not being responsive.  In fact, I’ve heard of situations in which clients have gone weeks without getting a call back from their lawyer.

This generally happens when a lawyer does not have enough administrative support in his or her office.  Far too many lawyers believe they can take care of everything in and around their office themselves, from paperwork to client meetings to calendaring to returning phone calls to connecting with their clients other advisors, the list goes on and on.  Truth is, a lawyer who is a true solo practitioner without administrative support or in a firm without adequate support will become overwhelmed and non-responsive to your needs.

You can and should ask your lawyer how he or she will respond to your ongoing needs, how quickly calls are returned in the office, if there is someone on hand to answer quick questions and if you should expect to get right through to your lawyer when you call the office.

A great way to test this is to call your prospective lawyer’s office and ask for him or her.  If you get put right through or even worse sent to a voicemail, think twice about hiring this lawyer because it means they do not have effective systems in place for managing and responding to calls or answering your quick questions.  Instead, what you want is for the person answering the phone or another team member to offer to help you and if he or she cannot then to schedule a call for you to talk with your lawyer at a future date and time when he or she will be ready to focus on your matter.

Your lawyer cannot be effective and efficient if he or she is taking every call that comes through to him or her – all calls should be pre-scheduled when you are both ready and your lawyer can focus on your specific needs.

3. How will you proactively communicate with me on an ongoing basis?

Unfortunately, most lawyers do a horrible job of proactively communicating with their clients on an ongoing basis.  The general thinking in the legal industry is that legal work is transactional in nature and clients will call when something changes.  But, this is faulty thinking and in my opinion just pure laziness on the part of lawyers.

You want to look for a lawyer who will proactively communicate with you at least quarterly by mail via an informative, easy to read newsletter and monthly by email.  I prefer to hear from the professionals I work with monthly by mail and weekly by email, but progress can only happen so fast.

If you are considering hiring a lawyer who does not proactively communicate with his or her clients, think again.  This lawyer might be stuck in an old, outdated mindset that won’t serve your needs in the best possible way.

4. Can I call about any legal problem I have or just about matters within your specialty?

In today’s complex world, lawyers must have specialized training in one or more specific practice areas, such as divorce, bankruptcy, wills & trusts, estates, personal injury, business, criminal matters or employment.  You definitely do NOT want to be working with a lawyer who professes to be an expert in whatever walks through the door.   However, you do want your personal lawyer and/or business lawyer to have a broad enough expertise that you can consult with your lawyer on all sorts of legal or financial issues that come up in your life and he or she will be able to guide you right.

Trust me, you probably don’t want the lawyer who designed your estate plan to also handle your personal injury claim, your dispute with your landlord and advise you on your divorce, but you do want him or her to be there to hear your story, find you the exact right lawyer and be available as a consultant to you. That way, you can call you personal lawyer before signing legal documents (even loan documents), any time you have a legal or financial issue, or whenever anything that could affect your family or business adversely comes up and know you’ll get great guidance.

Look for a lawyer who has an ongoing service program or membership program in place so that you can pay a low monthly fee and be able to call with all of your legal and financial questions without being charged hourly for the consultation.  And be sure that when you call, you’ll get to schedule time to talk with your own personal lawyer who you know and trust and not get passed off to one of any number of lawyers who happen to work in the office and may not know who you are or what’s important to you.

5. What happens if you die or retire?

This is a critically important question to ask any service professional when beginning a relationship and a question that is far too often overlooked.  Sure, it may feel uncomfortable to ask, but a truly excellent, client-centered service provider will have in place a plan to ensure their clients are taken care of no matter what happens to the lawyer in the future.

Answers you want to look for here are that your lawyer has a clear plan in place for someone warm and caring to take over your matter without providing any interruption of service to you. If your lawyer prepared a Will, Trust and other estate planning documents for you, or you are in the middle of a divorce or lawsuit, you want to ensure your lawyer has a plan in place so you won’t need to start everything over from scratch.  And, if you are on a membership program with your lawyer, you’ll want to make sure he or she has a relationship with a lawyer or network of lawyers who can continue to service you under that program.

When you ask these 5 questions before hiring a lawyer for any type of legal matter, you will know you are engaging a trusted advisor who will help you to make the very best decisions for you, your family and your business for the rest of your lifetime.

Get it in Writing … Real Life Reasons for Legal Agreements

Legal agreements are so boring, aren’t they? And, if you are like most people, you are making a lot of deals in life without documenting those deals. I always give people the benefit of the doubt and trust, so I do it myself. And, I’m a lawyer!

That means, if I do it, you do it too. 

But, having an agreement isn’t about not trusting someone. It’s about knowing that you’re on the same page. You might think you both agreed to something when in reality you thought one thing and they thought something else.

When you have an agreement in place, that risk is minimized.

Below are some real life examples (including one from my own life) of how putting it in writing can actually increase the likelihood of success for whatever you are doing, whether it’s personal or business related. And I’ve got some easy tips for creating your own legal agreements.

I recently hired a live-in nanny/house manager. She’s great and she’s saving my sanity. She worked with me for about 6 weeks and everything was great.

Then, things started getting not so great. Not bad, but I noticed little things starting to slip through the cracks – meals not ready on time, cats food bowls not refilled, not waking up on time a couple of times. Things like that.  Little things, really.

But, enough of these little things could add up to unhappiness and resentment.  So, I wrote up an agreement.

It’s a simple agreement that spells out my expectations. (If you want to see it, post a comment on the blog with your email address and I’ll send it to you.) You are more than welcome to use it as a basis for your own agreement.

I emailed it to her and let her know I wanted her input on it as well.  It’s an agreement, meaning we both need to agree to what’s included. We sat down together, went over each of the points, and we each signed it.  Simple. And, it fleshed out some places we were not on the same page, which could have become a problem later.

Here are some other situations in which you want to have written agreements:

• Buying property with another person
• Hiring an employee or an independent contractor (in fact, if they are an independent contractor, an agreement is even more important because otherwise you are at risk of them being reclassified as an employee, which means you owe all sorts of back taxes)
• Getting married
• Having a baby
• Starting a business
• Buying a business
• Moving in together
• Subletting your house
• Contracting for services
• Hiring a handyman or contractor

So, how do you get your legal agreement done easily?  Here’s a few simple steps:

1. Find a Template To Start From

Even lawyers don’t create legal documents from scratch. We use something we’ve created before or ask our friends to send us something they’ve used in a similar situation.

You can do the same by searching Google for the basic document you need … i.e., nanny agreement, cohabitation agreement, roommate agreement, parenting agreement, independent contractor agreement. You may be able to find something free or you may have to pay a few bucks.  It’s worth it.

For a template nanny agreement, post your email addy in the comments section of this blog post and I’ll send you my nanny agreement as a starting place for your nanny agreement.

2. Modify the Template to Fit Your Situation

The template you find is not going to be perfect for your situation.  It’s going to need modification based on the specifics of your situation. Use the template as a guide to spark your imagination of what you might want to include. There are generally very few mandatory parts of an agreement (other than the date and your signatures), so get creative. This is about your agreement and what you want.

3. Get Buy-In

Once you’ve put in everything you want, email it to the person you are creating the agreement with and ask them for their thoughts on the agreement. Make sure to mention the agreement is a starting place for discussion (if it is) and that you welcome their input.

4. Sign It, Date It and File It

Written agreements just need to be signed and dated to make them valid. Each of you should sign the agreement and date it. You generally don’t need witnesses or notarization.  Just your signatures and the date should do. Then, make sure that each of you has a copy of the agreement to refer back to in the event of uncertainty or a later disagreement.

5. Get it Reviewed … Maybe!

Sometimes, you need to get your agreements reviewed by a lawyer, sometimes you don’t.

So, when should you have a lawyer review your agreement? Generally, when it has anything to do with money or your business, it’s a good idea to get it reviewed. If you think there’s a possibility you might need to legally enforce the agreement some day, get it reviewed. One important note here on prenuptial agreements or marital agreements, in some states, like California, the agreement is not legally valid unless both parties were represented by a lawyer. That doesn’t mean it’s not helpful to have an agreement, but it won’t be legally enforceable.

If the purpose of the agreement is about setting and managing expectations, it’s not necessary to get a lawyer involved. Just having the agreement is the point.Don’t have a personal lawyer in your life who can review simple agreements for you?  You should!  Get your own Personal Family Lawyer here.

By Alexis Martin Neely. Reprinted with permission from www.familywealthmatters.com