Boston Estate Planning and Probate Lawyer & Attorney : Gosselin & Associates Law Firm : Serving Boston, Winchester, Hingham, Wellesley, Manchester

I make my Easter turkey a couple of different ways, sometimes, I'll even make two or three smaller birds in different styles. My favorite method for preparing turkey is really the most simple. First, choose a fresh 10-12lb whole turkey, clean it thoroughly. Preheat a three burner gas grill to maximum temperature with a handful of hickory chips wrapped in aluminum foil, (I use a Vermont Castings that I got at Home Depot for this part ).

Mix chopped carrots, celery, onion, fresh sage, fresh ground pepper, a crushed and chopped lemon, a couple cloves of garlic and five tablespoons of sea salt (seriously) together and stuff it into the turkey cavity. Generously slather sea salt, ground pepper, fresh sage and lemon juice all over the skin. Here's the trick. Now, turn the middle burner to the off position and the front and back burners to the lowest possible setting. Place the turkey breast up, close the grill and wait. Whatever you do, don't check on the turkey. Just come back in 2.5 hours. Do not open the lid. Do not open the lid. Do not open the lid. I know you will, so close it quickly - the secret is uninterrupted convection. Don't eat the vegetables inside, just discard them prior to serving.

 

There are two holidays in my estate planning world - Easter and Leap Year Day. Huh? Easter is a holiday based around families coming together to share a meal and in the "Leave it to Beaver" world to think about the good things in life that come from being a family and the re-birth that the season inspires. Since we had Leap Year Day, there is no Easter on my perpetual calendar this year.

Of course, Easter today is as much about Easter baskets, and after Easter sales at the Burlington Mall. Leap Year Day is a big holiday on my perpetual calendar.

LYD (what us insiders call it) is a day every four years that you should take your estate plan and read it. And as you get older, I'd celebrate the last day of February more often. For older clients, I suggest reviewing your estate plan each year at Easter time. So, every four years until you stop buying green bananas!

Death. Money. Who gets the china? I think these are wonderful topics for your Easter Feast. What better time than when you have the whole family together to discuss your estate plan? If you want to review your intended resurrection, I'm all for it - tell your family that you will haunt them. I am a great proponent of talking to your family about your financial affairs and your intent - albeit homogenized for the audience. You may not want your in-laws to be in the room, no problem, give them a Monopoly box and put them in the den. Easter is a good day for board games. Did you ever think that Milton Bradley has a Monopoly on Monopoly?

Be direct with your children. In my experience as an elder law lawyer in Massachusetts, I have learned that frankness wins the day. You can reduce your child's anxiety by giving them straight answers and your clear intent. If you intend to create trusts for your children - tell them so. And don't let your spendthrift child talk you out of protecting him from himself. If need be, call your estate planning lawyer (my cell phone will be on on Easter for just such emergencies) to take the heat. As for health care issues there is nothing better than expressing your wishes to your family. After all, they will be the ones to make decisions about your care when you are no longer able.

It's a time to give thanks for the good things in our lives and to discuss what will happen after our deaths. It's what Jesus would do.

Happy Easter and God Bless.

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Is there a dirtier word in the whole wills and trusts business than probate? The public perception is that probate is nothing more than a way for lawyers and the government to get their fingers into people's pies. The whole point of probate in the first place is to establish the veracity of legal documents - your will is not your will until and unless it is presented to the public as a whole. This is done to prove whether it was signed the right way, you were mentally competent when you signed it and it meets other formalities. By law, and mainly because the law dates back several hundred years to England, probate in Massachusetts lasts for at least one year from the date of death and often much longer because of various administrative tasks required of an executor in Massachusetts.

What does a probate executor do anyways? I like to say that the business of being an executor is the only business where you are successful if you go OUT of business. The role of executor is to gather the decedent's personal property (the probate estate) and to distribute either according to the decedent's will or by operation of the Massachusetts intestacy laws. Intestacy laws in Massachusetts apply when there is no will and the executor in that case is technically called the administrator of the estate, but it's really the same thing for all practical purposes before the Massachusetts Probate Court. The executor is sort of the bus driver for the whole probate estate - abiding road signs and bringing the passengers (money) to their appropriate destinations. The executor needs to gather the assets, pay the taxes, divide up things that are hard to divide up (like a porcelain doll or a Chris Craft boat), pay taxes and other bills and lastly distribute funds to the legatees under the will or to the heirs in intestacy. In some states it can be a reasonably well paying proposition.

For the most part in Massachusetts probate, being an executor is a very responsible and only modestly compensated role. Admittedly, legal fees for probate can add up do to the procedural and practical steps necessary to properly settle an estate in Massachusetts. If you do even a little planning probate is entirely avoidable. But that little planning is not getting your will done. In fact, a will is nothing but a ticket to the Massachusetts Probate Court. Without probate there is no will as it is your last will that counts. Remember we call it your LAST Will and Testament, it's the latest date that matters for the probate court in Massachusetts.

An old time Boston lawyer told me the story of a Boston Brahman woman who lived on Beacon Hill. She would come into a his downtown Boston law firm each Friday at ten in the morning for the sole reason of updating her will. Each week she would have a new codicil to her will drawn up and then executed in full view of her lawyer as notary public, two legal assistants as witnesses and her two caregivers. She would make a point of reading aloud the codicil to her will in the presence of these persons. "I, Mary So-So, being of sound mind, blah, blah, blah..... leave my nurse Mary 68% of the funds set aside for my caregivers for exceptional service in the past week and to my nurse Eloise 32% of the funds set aside for my caregivers due to her tardiness in preparing my evening baths." And apparently this went on for many years as the old dame received excellent care. Her last will was the one that mattered.

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