Divorce and its unintended probate-litigation aftermaths are a recurring topic on this blog (see here, here & here). The subtext to these prior posts should be fairly obvious: every divorcing client needs estate planning! However, just in case the message wasn’t getting across Florida attorney Jeffrey Baskies was kind enough to write a Florida Bar Journal article entitled Every Divorcing Client Needs Estate Planning that does a good job of underscoring the interconnections between divorce and estate planning. Here’s the concluding paragraph to Mr. Baskies’ article:
[T]here are many compelling reasons every divorcing client needs estate planning. Clients involved in a divorce need to consider and address their changed circumstances and their changed estate planning objectives. Any lawyer representing a client in a divorce should advise the client to see a qualified estate planning attorney. Indeed, no divorcing client should ignore the complicated legal issues relating to estate planning that are made acute by the initiation of the divorce proceedings. For all of these reasons, estate planning should be a top concern for divorce lawyers and should be addressed immediately with their clients.