It has been said that young adults without significant assets do not need a will. In response, I present an interview with my friend “F”. F is in her mid-20s. She has full-time employment and also runs a side photography business. She is single and childless, but she has a serious boyfriend. Her divorced parents…
Have you ever Googled yourself? Did you find any fascinating careers and/or hobbies that your same-named friends have undertaken? It is amazing and a bit scary how much one kind find through this three-second exercise. Searching My Own Name I entered my first and last name in quotes earlier today and found the following information:…
NOTE: I am proud to announce that my post below also appears in the January 2012 edition of the WealthCounsel Quarterly Newsletter, linked here. While written mainly for estate planning practitioners, this overview is also hopefully helpful to anyone with any digital assets. Enjoy, and Happy New Year! Read more...
The following is a summary of popular topics discussed in estate planning blogs and articles last month. Federal Estate and Gift Tax Updates The IRS announced that for 2012, the federal estate tax exclusion will increase to $5,120,000 (it was $5 million in 2011). As Julie Garber of about.com notes, this means that the lifetime…
Cloud computing is the ever-growing system of online companies providing services online as opposed to providing them through software that you would install on your own computer. In “the cloud”, everything from applications to storage to infrastructure is provided online, thereby giving users the ability to find their data on any networked computer, smart phone…
This past April top estate planning blogger David A. Shulman, Esq. opined that “[t]he #1 Estate Planning blog is and continues to be Texas Tech Univ. School of Law Professor Gerry Beyer’s ‘Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog.’ It is, and continues to be, essential reading for anyone in the profession.” Read more...
I got a nice note from a Boston University graduate student several weeks ago asking me to address some of her questions about digital estate planning, which in turn triggered this post. For a summary introduction on this topic, I humbly offer these posts (Digital Assets, Part I, Digital Assets, Part II, and Steps to…
When the best in online reading on estate planning involves traditional Jewish stews, baseball, and a lawsuit involving the inability of an apparently dead person to refinance her mortgage, you know it’s going to be a fun week. Enjoy these posts and articles that I thought were the most interesting and helpful during the week…
Today, we will continue our discussion of digital estate planning by talking about some direct steps you can take to protect your “digital assets” after your death. The overall goal is to protect the existence of your documents, pictures, emails, etc., and to prevent sites from destroying them before your digital executor can get to…
Today, we’ll continue our discussion on digital assets (see part I here) by reviewing the current state of the law, including the enforceability of the “Terms of Service” we all click on before opening an online account. Categories of Property First, let’s discuss the broad ways that the law defines different kinds of property before…
