One thing I enjoy most about being an estate planning attorney at Old Colony Law is that feeling in the room when our work with a client is complete. Clients have the confidence that their loved ones are protected and that their estate plan now gives the full force of law behind their personal wishes. If you do not have an estate plan, however, then you leave it to the commonwealth to decide how your assets are distributed upon your death; your family could have to pay more taxes; and a court could appoint someone to manage your finances and health care.

Accordingly, to engage in estate planning is to protect your property rights and privacy rights, and prevent such government intrusion. People are often surprised and pleased by the options available to them in the estate planning process. After all, we like choices, not mandates. We have choices when it comes to what happens after death, but not death itself. We decide who gets the house, who runs the family business, and how to protect the inheritance. But under current law, the government leaves terminally ill individuals with carefully deliberated wishes without a choice.

The end-of-life options legislation would fix that. We spend our entire lives resisting government intrusion into our lives —  into our schools, our communities, our health care, our bedroom. The only thing more intrusive than the government dictating how you ought to live is the government dictating how you ought to die.

Ben Palkowski

Hadley