Trust Drafting for Paralegals looks at the practical side of everyday trust drafting. The text takes a look at a wide variety of problems and concerns faced by clients who solicit elder care and estate planning help, including estate tax issues, Medicaid planning issues and creditor protection issues. The text focuses on trusts and how they provide solutions to many of these problems. Examples, many inspired by real life cases handled by the author, are presented throughout to ensure that the information presented is practical and useful. Trust provisions, many used by the author in executed trusts, are presented as suggestions for how ideas presented in the text can be put into practice.
The text does not delve deeply into the theory behind the applicable rules and does not exhaustively analyze the relevant statutes and cases. Instead, the text is designed to give the student a working understanding of the issues most likely to come up in real life and the starting points for going about dealing with these issues. In addition, the text is designed to make the student aware of what pitfalls to watch for when analyzing a client's case. Special attention is given to enabling the student to interweave issues that clients are likely to face so that, for example, the client (to the extent possible) does not have to sacrifice tax benefits for Medicaid planning benefits, etc.