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In New Jersey, people who have created a product or formulated an idea will want to benefit from it financially. This is true regardless of whether they began their work to build a business, benefit others or both. That will include understanding the various legal issues that can arise when protecting their property and keeping it from being used against their will or outright stolen. Understanding the arcane details about protecting intellectual property can be...

It seems like every time we turn on the news, we hear about a new cryptocurrency making early investors millions. Indeed, Bitcoin or Dogecoin seem to be in the news at least once a week. These are the digital assets that most people are familiar with: cryptocurrencies. However, there is an entire world of other digital assets that need to be included estate plans. Social media is a digital asset What happens to our social...

When a person dies in New Jersey, and they have a will, their estate enters Probate Court. Probate is a concern for many estate planners. Planners seek to avoid it for a variety of reasons, including the fees and the lack of privacy it affords. Thankfully, New Jersey residents have a variety of ways to avoid probate court. Revocable trusts A revocable trust is an effective way to avoid probate. All assets transferred into the...

Your parents have always been a source of guidance and wisdom but once they pass away you may be left in charge of probating their estate, something you have never done before. It is natural to be confused by the New Jersey probate process. If your parents left a will naming you as executor or if they died without a will and the court appointed you as administrator, you must ensure the estate is properly...

Estate planning is about more than just what happens when you die. It also includes things like trusts and Medicaid planning, which can be important tools while you’re still running around and enjoying life. Advance healthcare directives are yet another prong of good estate planning, to take care of those situations when you are unable to handle them yourself. What is an advance directive? Simply put, an advance directive is a choice, or series of...

Sometimes will are contested. An individual may believe that the will of the deceased does not accurately reflect their true wishes, due to the undue influence of another or they lacked the capacity to properly express their true wishes. Often, this takes the form of a beneficiary bringing the challenge, in an attempt to alter the will’s terms. But there is another avenue that does not involve the confrontation of a formal challenge. A meeting...

Estate planners may have questions about what they should include in their estate plan and what they should include in their will. It is helpful for estate planners to have answers to these questions, know what to include in their will and if spouses should have separate wills. Separate wills for spouses It is a good idea for spouses to have separate wills and in some states joint wills between spouses are not recognized. Though...

The economic turmoil of the past 18 months has been hard on New Jersey’s small businesses. With things now starting to return to something closer to normal, many of these businesses have struggled to return to the level of service their customers expect. One reason for this has been a labor shortage. The causes of this shortage are complicated and somewhat controversial, but several new initiatives by state and local government take aim at the...

Small businesses and aspiring entrepreneurs in New Jersey will quickly realize that one of the biggest challenges is finding the necessary capital to start a new enterprise or keep one running. While some may be able to attract investors who are willing to be repaid in future profits, most businesses will also have to get a conventional loan for at least some of their expenses. Getting a loan will mean going through underwriting, offering some...

A lot of people wait until the last minute to create or modify an estate plan. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with doing so, it does leave the door open to some legal issues that can linger for a significant period of time to come. In these circumstances, your estate or the estate of a loved one could end up facing validity challenges which, depending on how they turn out, can completely reshape asset distribution...