Tag Archives: wills and estates

New semester and new job on the horizon!

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As my first semester at PPCC draws to a close, I am taking stock of all I’ve learned but also looking forward to the new challenges January will bring. My courses for the new semester are Contracts, Property Law, Civil Litigation, and Estates and Probate. January is, of course, also the start of tax season (Feel free to ask me for tips! I AM authorized to practice taxes!) and thus a new phase of employment. This year I’ve been asked to be an office manager, so I am very much looking forward to whatever additional light my coursework can shed on the workings of tax law. Any knowledge I gain from it is knowledge I can also pass on to everyone else at my office, after all!

To all who read this, I wish you a happy holiday season and a bountiful new year!

Durable power of attorney

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An assignment from the unit on legal agency in Introduction to Law. I had dealt a few times before with general and specific powers of attorney in tax preparation situations, although in those cases I was checking the documents to verify that a military spouse was properly authorized to file on behalf of a deployed service member, instead of composing the documents to meet future needs. One of my instructor’s comments in the assignment feedback was that she found general powers of attorney quite scary, given what a poor agent could do with the power to sign contracts in the name of the principle!

Comparison between two Last Will and Testaments

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This example was the first assignment for my Computers and the Law course, meant to display the use of Microsoft Word more than familiarity with the provisions and format of estate documents. I utilized online examples to find the best legal terminology I could with my current skills.

 

The second example, from Introduction to the Law about 3 months later, comes in three parts. The assignment was to create a joint will and a living trust agreement, but my research revealed that joint wills are discouraged (though still technically legal) in Colorado. Instead, I executed a pair of mutual wills and prepared the requisite trust agreement. By this point I had gained a much better grasp of the necessary provisions of a proper will and was able to modify the standard language more extensively to suit my needs.