Post by Beth Aarons * Many divorcing parents put their estate planning issues on the back burner as part of their post-divorce “to do” list. Divorcing parents with minor children or children with special needs, however, may wish to include a guardian nomination provision within their divorce agreement.   Guardian nomination provisions are not required by the Court as part of the divorce agreement, and are therefore seldom seen, but having the conversation prior to the divorce and memorializing the couple’s agreed-upon wishes is an easy way to protect the children from a potential nightmare down the road. Most divorcing couples are primarily focused on the immediate issue of transforming a single family unit into separate lives: division of assets and liabilities, transitioning to two households, and creating the parenting plan.  These issues contemplate the parents living apart, with the issue of the death of one parent arising primarily in the context of a triggering...

The following is a guest blog post written by our colleague Danielle G. Van Ess, Esq. of DGVE law, LLC in Hingham, MA. You might be surprised how many of my new estate planning clients realize, after we’ve talked a little, that their ex-spouses are still named as the primary beneficiary of their life insurance policies or, more often even, their retirement accounts. And given the value of those assets, their reactions in that moment of realization are far less surprising. If you are divorcing or divorced, you need to ensure that you have changed the beneficiary of those and other pay on death type accounts. And given that you will no longer be sharing your life with your ex-spouse, it’s likely you won’t also want him or her to be the one to speak for you in the event of your incapacity or be the one to make medical decisions for you, including whether to discontinue life support, if you are ever unable to do so yourself. So if you already had such estate planning documents in place...