Interactive Legal Blog

Are You a Sitting Duck in Your Law Practice? An In-Depth Look at ADA Accessible Websites

by Audrey Ehrhardt, Esq., CBC, Practice42

ADA accessibility and compliance in law firm websites across the nation are becoming not only more relevant, but a necessity as we see an increasing amount of litigation against businesses over their websites.  Website accessibility lawsuits center around the fact that all, or a portion of, the business website or app is inaccessible to the disabled.  We are watching as the filing of website accessibility lawsuits rises dramatically.  While in 2017, we only saw an increase in these types of lawsuits by 17%, in 2018 we have seen an increase by 181%.¹

Most of us understand and have taken the steps we need to take in order to ensure our physical location is ADA friendly, but what about our law firm website?  From parking spaces and clear, wide entryways to employee training on relay communication and braille friendly documents, our law practices are friendly to disabled persons.  This holds true in many small firms, even when they are not required to be disability-friendly under Title I of the ADA.

Documentary Film, “Lives Well Lived,” Continues to Impact Lives, For Both Young and Young at Heart

In January 2019, at The Heckerling Institute on Estate Planning, a select group of InterActive Legal subscribers were invited to a private luncheon screening of the documentary film, "Lives Well Lived."  The film visits with 40 people ranging in age from 75 to 100 years young and casts a light on what these fully actualized individuals continue to do in order to make their own lives rich and well lived in the latter decades of life.

At the January event, InterActive Legal guests were delighted to meet and have their photo taken with the film’s creator, Sky Bergman.  Ms. Bergman closed out the event by describing the creative process behind the film and answering audience questions. 

 

InterActive Legal Welcomes Deirdre R. Wheatley-Liss, Esq. and Scott M. Solkoff, Esq. to its Advisory Board

Melbourne, FL - InterActive Legal welcomes Deirdre R. Wheatley-Liss, Esq. and Scott M. Solkoff, Esq. to its Advisory Board.

It is my honor to welcome two of the nation’s top elder law attorneys, Deirdre Wheatley-Liss and Scott Solkoff, to the InterActive Legal Advisory Board. It is fitting that Deirdre and Scott join our cadre of Advisors at the same time, because each of them exhibits what I have come to appreciate as the essential qualities of many successful elder law attorneys: compassion for those they serve, a commitment to supporting the elder law community and their colleagues, and the entrepreneurial spirit to develop a thriving practice.

Deirdre, a long-time InterActive Legal subscriber, has a depth of knowledge in the areas of elder law and estate planning, and a phenomenal insight into the business of an elder law practice. She understands the needs of the broad spectrum of elder law attorneys, whether practicing at a large firm or in a solo practice. Scott, in addition to being a talented and successful elder law attorney, has a unique gift for teaching, which I had the pleasure of witnessing when I attended the 360° Elder Law Practice Builder Conference earlier this year. His ability to explain the foundational concepts of elder law and estate planning in a way that is comprehensive yet approachable led to numerous “a-ha” moments for all of us in attendance, regardless of background and level of experience.

Meet the newest member of InterActive Legal's content team, Mohineet Khosla!

 

Melbourne, FL — InterActive Legal extends a warm welcome to the newest member of its legal team, accomplished estate planning attorney, Mohineet Khosla.

Mohineet Khosla received her J.D. from New York University School of Law in 2001. Following law school, Mohineet practiced for over a decade at Milbank LLP in NYC, where she was a colleague of InterActive Legal Editor-in-Chief and Co-Author, Jonathan Blattmachr, and InterActive Legal President, Vanessa Kanaga. Her practice included providing sophisticated estate planning advice to high net worth families, both domestic and international. Mohineet has also represented clients in audits before the Internal Revenue Service and fiduciaries on complex estate and trust administration matters.

As a consultant with the InterActive Legal Content Team, Mohineet will apply her expertise in researching and developing content for the InterActive LegalSuite programs. Her depth of knowledge and experience, combined with her meticulous and reasoned approach to her work, will allow InterActive Legal to continue to enhance and expand its offerings while maintaining the quality and accuracy that have given InterActive LegalSuite its reputation as the premium automated document drafting system for estate planning and elder law attorneys.

The Merging of Estate Planning and Elder Law

by Scott M. Solkoff, Esq.[1]

Two major pressures are moving the practices of Estate Planning and Elder Law together. The dominant pressure is one of demand. For most Americans, the greatest threat to their financial well-being is not taxes. It is the cost of incapacity and long-term care. Addressing these needs with the ethics and skills of an attorney are in high demand. The second pressure is the continuing erosion of value proposition. This second pressure is further broken down twofold: perceived commoditization and the reduced market for tax planning.

Those who routinely deal with high net-worth clients are largely insulated by these pressures. The very wealthy can bear the storm of incapacity and long-term care and they are more apt to understand the value of good lawyering relative to taxes. Given today’s large exemption amounts, however, only one-tenth of one percent of Americans are subject to federal estate, gift and generation-skipping tax exemptions.[2] Most Americans need a different approach, one that blends the Estate Planning and Elder Law toolboxes.[3]

Estate Planning Attorneys are therefore looking to diversify their practices, address prevalent problems and preserve or increase their income streams. Many are wedding Elder Law to their existing practices. Elder Law is among the fastest growing areas of law and has a great level of personal reward. For Estate Planning attorneys, it is also a relatively easy practice area to incorporate since Elder Law and traditional Estate Planning are not-too-distant cousins. This blog post explains the core practice components of an Elder Law practice and how to determine whether Elder Law is right for you.

No One Can Read My Email, (And Other Myths in the Practice of Law Today)

By Michael L. Graham, Esq.

Your law firm email is secure, right? If it were not, you would have issues with your state’s ethical rules requiring you to keep client confidences. As a summary and guide for the multiple state ethical rules, ABA Model Rule of Professional Conduct §1.6(a) provides:

A lawyer shall not reveal information relating to the representation of a client unless the client gives informed consent, the disclosure is impliedly authorized in order to carry out the representation or the disclosure is permitted by paragraph (b).

Carrying this focus further, §1.6(c), provides:

A lawyer shall make reasonable efforts to prevent the inadvertent or unauthorized disclosure of, or unauthorized access to, information relating to the representation of a client.

First, are your laptop and desktop computers password protected, do they have locators on them so that they can be tracked if lost, and do they contain remotely activated erase software so that one can remotely erase the hard drive if someone tries to connect a stolen laptop to the internet? Is this important? ABA Formal Opinion 477R (revised May 22, 2017) tells us:

A lawyer generally may transmit information relating to the representation of a client over the internet without violating the Model Rules of Professional Conduct where the lawyer has undertaken reasonable efforts to prevent inadvertent or unauthorized access.

Are Your Estate Plans Prepared for Digital Assets?

By Lee Poskanzer, CEO of Directive Communication Systems

The time to address digital assets as part of your client’s estate plan may have begun to run out. We’ve all heard about digital assets, cryptocurrency and occasional lawsuits by family members against social media giants like Yahoo! and Facebook. But now the topic of digital assets will necessarily have landed on your desk when you begin the estate planning process for a client.

Are you fully prepared to help your clients plan for this new asset class, and to protect yourself and your practice from doing the wrong thing?

Digital assets are the new frontier for Trust and Estates practitioners. It’s time to get up to speed about this important asset class.

For the purposes of this discussion, we will limit the focus to the most critical area of digital property: the disclosure of an account’s contents. Closing an account, removing the name from a family share plan and other “action” oriented events will be saved for another day.

The 20 Key Performance Indicators of a Successful Law Firm

By Wendy Witt, JD

With only a glance, you have instant access to your car’s dashboard, displaying exactly what you need to know to diagnose a problem and determine what action to take next: fill the gas tank, change the oil, check the engine, or adjust your speed.

Your doctor uses a dashboard where she tracks lab results, examination notes, and your comments. That dashboard empowers her to diagnose and recommend treatment. In addition, successful business owners use dashboards. They track their business’s KPIs (key performance indicators) so they can diagnose problems, identify opportunities, and make good decisions. If you own your law firm, you’re a business owner too and need your own dashboard.

In fact, you’re not just a business owner, you’re a CEO. Tracking your numbers empowers you to make good decisions and know what to do when. For example, wouldn’t it be nice to know what needs to be tweaked to increase cash flow? Or, wouldn’t it be nice to how much you can draw from the firm without worry? Or, wouldn’t it be nice to not throw money at something that’s unnecessary? Dashboarding works in firms of all sizes and even for individual attorneys who want to think entrepreneurially, increase revenue, and build the department or law firm and life they love.

Geriatric Care Management: An Untapped Resource for Elder Law Attorneys

By Jennifer Traglia, Gerontologist

It’s been two weeks since you last spoke to Jack. His mother, your client, has just fallen – again. This time it sounds serious. As far as you know, she is still in the hospital, with a long road of rehab ahead. Naturally, as a trusted family attorney, you feel responsible.

What will happen to the house? Will she move, or will her only son (who lives 900 miles away) set up in-home care? Surely, Jack will need to take more time off work to sort this out. If only there were a resource or professional to handle all of this…

A New Age of Aging

The statistics of our aging population are astounding. Nearly 10,000 baby boomers are turning 65 each day! The “oldest old,” those 85 and above, have more health care needs than any other age group and are proportionately the fasted growing segment of the aging population. The medical community is not the only service segment struggling to keep up with these growing demands. Due to established long-term client relationships some attorneys also see things reaching a boiling point. Estate planning and elder law firms are feeling the effects of the aging population and are increasingly being asked to act as frontline service coordinators.

New VA Regulations for Aid & Attendance (Part 1): Finally! VA Releases Regulations for Needs-Based Benefits

The first article in a series reviewing the Impact of the NEW VA Regulations on Aid & Attendance

By Elizabeth Q. Boehmcke, Esq.

In January 2015, the Department of Veterans Affairs (the "VA") published proposed regulations amending eligibility requirements for its needs-based programs, including the veteran's aid and attendance pension benefit for veterans and their surviving spouses (referred to herein as the "Aid & Attendance pension benefit"). The VA reports that it received over 850 comments to the proposed regulations during the public comment period, which ended in late March 2015. Since then we have been waiting to learn to what extent the VA would make changes to those proposed regulations, unsure whether the final regulations would impact clients' applications that were in process when the final regulations were finally published. The final regulations were published on September 18, and are effective as of October 18, 2018. For professionals who work with veterans, their surviving spouses and families, the final regulations bring significant changes to the considerations that bear on their planning for such individuals.

The final regulations made major changes in three areas that will impact planning for the Aid & Attendance pension benefit: the calculation of net worth, an expansion of the types of expenses which can be taken as unreimbursed medical deductions from income, and the imposition of a three-year look back period for certain transfers, and penalties for such transfers. I will discuss each change in detail over the course of three installments. It should be noted that some changes to the proposed regulations may well be very favorable for claimants notwithstanding the new penalty for certain transfers. This post will concentrate on the new net worth regulations, because the transfer rules really cannot be understood without first comprehending the net worth rules. (Unless otherwise noted, all section references are to 38 C.F.R., Part 3.)