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Pankauski’s Guardianship Guide: How Your Family Will Fight over You & Your Money While You Are Still Alive

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Get a behind the scenes look at adult guardianships… What are the pros and cons, risks, and rewards to consider when someone in your family files for guardianship? Pankauski’s Guardianship Guide provides a first-hand view of the stark reality of what it means when one of your family members claims that you are incapacitated, incompetent, or unable to manage your affairs. In those circumstances, you may find yourself in a guardianship court, represented or opposed by someone like guardianship litigation lawyer John Pankauski. Spouses, adult children and loved ones: learn what goes on behind the scenes at guardianship courts when family members fight to control mom or dad and their money. This book explains guardianships in an easy- to-understand, direct and straightforward approach. – How the guardianship court is one of the new battlegrounds of the “fight for your wealth” – Sisters fighting with brothers, brothers fighting with in-laws, second and third spouses fighting with everybody over whether a senior family member can manage his or her own affairs or not – Who is going to control all that money and property – The unique role of a power of attorney, or trustee, of someone’s living trust and why they get special attention in the guardianship court – The secrets behind how a guardianship may not be needed, even if someone is incapacitated and incompetent John Pankauski is the managing member of Pankauski Hauser PLLC (www.phflorida.com), a boutique litigation and appellate law firm in West Palm Beach, Florida. The firm handles guardianship, probate, and business trials and appeals throughout Florida. Now, after years of representing clients in Florida guardianship courts, Pankauski takes you through the battle grounds and minefields of guardianships. Read More

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Federal judges’ financial conflicts add to mistrust of the judicial system

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Zero Accountability over 700 Judges Violations of Law on Conflicts

A recent Wall Street Journal investigation found that over the last decade, 131 federal judges failed to recuse themselves in hundreds of cases that involved their own financial interests. Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Roberts, in his year-end review of the federal judiciary, said the report’s findings indicate a “serious problem of inadequate ethics training,” especially for those judges who had numerous violations. The conflicts of interest primarily include judges hearing cases involving their or their families’ stock holdings, which ultimately tainted some 685 court cases. Given the rising concerns that the federal judiciary is becoming increasingly politicized, the newspaper’s findings are deeply troubling, says Martha Davis, university distinguished professor of law at Northeastern, adding that the violations only “compound the lack of trust that the federal judiciary seems to be breeding.” “What’s at stake here is a lot,” Davis says. “We have a judiciary for various reasons already losing the trust of the American people, and the evidence that federal judges are hearing cases that they have a direct financial interest in only makes things worse.” One of the primary mechanisms for alerting the courts about potential conflicts is through software that screens for them. The computerized system itself was implemented after a 2006 Washington Post investigation discovered a rash of ethics violations in the federal courts. But the more recent Wall Street Journal investigation found that the software isn’t foolproof, requiring more awareness from judges. “Judges are expected to know themselves, and not to rely on some kind of mechanism or computer system” to catch these conflicts, Davis says. “And they’re supposed to be aware of what their own assets are.” The Journal reports that some of the judges who hadn’t recused themselves in the cases… Read More

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