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

The son of philanthropist Brooke Astor was accused in an indictment unsealed Tuesday of plundering his mother's $198 million estate and conspiring to have the Alzheimer's-stricken socialite sign a new will leaving her fortune to him.

I guess this shows us that the rich are just like everyone else. Greed is no more a condition of poverty than hunger is a condition of obesity. Humans with a nature to cause harm to their families for their own profit come in all shapes and sizes. Brooke Astor is no more immune to her family's greed than any other elderly woman suffering from the ravages of dementia. Probate, estate taxes and trust issues for the rich are the same as for everyone else - just magnified by the scale of wealth.

A big part of our estate planning process is developing strategies to prevent abuse of the elderly. Using co-fiduciaries, professional trust services and checks and balances built into our documents, we are able to give our clients strong lines of defense. Brooke Astor may have had access to the best lawyers in the United States because of her wealth, but without an understanding of elder law and the dangers of elder abuse, even the best lawyer in Boston cannot imagine the opportunity for fraud within a parent-child relationship. Our experience tells us that the "big firm" lawyers are ill equipped to deal with what is often more social work than legal work.

Our practice is to approach mental health issues in our elderly clients as a multi-disciplinary issue. Working closely with medical providers, financial planners and social workers we craft bespoke plans that respect each individual client's unique personal situation. House, hospital or nursing home calls are commonplace in what we do, how else could we know how our clients live? Ask your downtown Boston lawyer to visit the nursing home on a Saturday morning.

In her day Brooke Astor, was a great philanthropist. In a great twist she will continue to be philanthropic through her own son's misdeeds by giving America an example of greed to the umpteenth degree. For elder law lawyers, Santa Claus could not have brought a more perfect Christmas present for elder parents than the example of the consequences of poor planning. Do your grandparents, parents and self a favor and give the affordable Christmas gift of good estate planning. And, yes, I would be happy to sell you a gift certificate for estate planning!

 

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A few years ago I realized that being a lawyer in Massachusetts was not the easiest job. As a lawyer, particularly in Massachusetts, there was constant pressure to compete for clients with the other lawyers, to always be on top of my game in elder law, estate planning, real estate, etc. (people seem to prefer to hire the smartest lawyer they can find) and making sure that my legal fees were paid. So essentially, clients came to me with their legal problems, I handled their cases over long periods of time as their lawyer, and to some degree chased the law firm's clients for legal fees. I needed a change. But what business could someone with nothing but years on years of school and training to help people with wills, trusts, probate, mortgages, purchase and sales agreements and estate taxes even imagine running as a moonlight operation? Ice Cream seemed to be the key to the kingdom.

Unlike a law firm, an ice cream store had few obtacles to providing excellent service. Heck, at first glance it looked like this lawyer would only need some ice cream, a way to keep it cold and a smile. The ice cream shop, as opposed to running a Boston law firm, appeared to have three elements - people arriving with joyful anticipation; people paying cash for a short and satisfying relationship with my firm; and people leaving happy and returning as soon as tomorrow to do it all again. Compared to a law firm, this business had it all. Now here is how lawyers should not be in the ice cream business. LICC, Inc. might have been doomed from its name, Lawyers Ice Cream Company. I bought a cute little piece of real estate in Winchester (we are just outside Boston proper inside 128), made a deal with the world's most famous ice cream lawyer, Bobby Rook, lawyer/owner of Emack & Bolio's Ice Cream. Here's Bobby's story in his own words from the Emack & Bolio's website.

Boston 1975. Peace, love, rock 'n roll. The music was everywhere. Live rock 'n roll music was being played at clubs throughout the town and rock 'n rollers from all over the US were coming to Boston to be part of the hot music scene. The only problem was the Boston Blue Laws. Clubs closed at midnight. What a bummer! Just when you and the music were really happening everything came to a halt. Along come these hippie lawyers working pro bono for the homeless, for gay civil rights, for anti-war demonstrators and of course representing all these famous rock 'n rollers who were being signed by major record labels. The solution to the midnight munchie blues: rent a basement in the Coolidge Corner section of Brookline, MA / buy a commercial ice cream machine / invite your rock star friends to hang out after their gigs eating homemade ice cream with outrageous flavors (creatively inspired by the lawyers and the rock 'n rollers) / play acoustic (we had neighbors) music 'til the wee hours of the morning. The rock 'n rollers loved the ice cream and the vibe. The basement ice cream hangout needed a name. Two homeless gentlemen that the lawyers did pro bono work for asked that the ice cream shop be named after them. The name had good karma. Emack & Bolio's. An ice cream legend was born.

Bob Rook, founder of Emack & Bolio's with James Brown in 1977

Bob Rook, a music lawyer, started E&B as a place that musicians could go to after their gigs to mellow out and satisfy their munchies. Some of the groups that Bob has worked closely with are: Aerosmith, Boston, The Cars, U2, James Brown and Al Green

So, I hired half a dozen 16 year olds to scoop ice cream. Like owning a boat, the day I opened for business was great - shiny new counters, banners, crowds, everything but the marching band. From there it was all down hill...... Most of the 16 year olds had complicated social calendars to meet that didn't involve keeping a work schedule. The ones that did show up mainly stole ice cream or money or both. Once school closed in town, everyone left, Winchester is a desolate little burg in the Summer - great for relaxing, hard for selling ice cream. Needless to say, I found out quickly that I am a far better probate, real estate, elder lawyer in Massachusetts than ice cream guy. I envy Bobby Rook - the Massachusetts lawyer that has the best of both worlds - ice cream and being a lawyer in Massachusetts.

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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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