This past week, along with my colleague Marisa Lepore Hovanec, I taught an educational program for lawyers called Estate Law for Family Lawyers. It was fun – we had over fifty lawyers in attendance. And they always ask challenging questions that make you rack your brain.
The program was about all the ways that estate planning and family law interact. For example, when someone first files for divorce, they really should update their estate documents, or make new ones if they’ve never made them.
With documents like a power of attorney or advance directive for healthcare, you can appoint someone to make financial and medical decisions for you if you’re not able to make them. Most people appoint their spouse first in line. However, what happens if you and your spouse are going through an acrimonious divorce?
Some of these appointments get automatically revoked under New Jersey law – NJSA 3B:3-14. However, that only takes effect once the divorce in finalized. And a divorce can last years. There can be tons of back and forth that takes a long time, and during that time, you probably don’t want your spouse to be able to withdraw money from your account or make medical decisions for you. So the best practice is to make new estate documents.
There are a lot of other examples like this, and it made me think about all the ways that estate law and family law intersect. It’s good for lawyers from different disciplines to talk to each other and learn from each other. It makes them better in their own field.