Law Firm Overview

Our law office is a Contra Costa and east bay Estate Planning, Medi-Cal Planning, and Long Term Care Planning firm which focuses on the unique and complex area of elder law. This includes protecting homes, cash, investments, and other assets from nursing home expenses, avoiding Medi-Cal spend-down requirements, creating structured gifting plans which do not violate Medi-Cal "look-back" rules, assisting clients in accelerating, obtaining, and retaining Medi-Cal eligibility, protecting assets from Medi-Cal "liens" and estate claims, and creating, or updating, estate plan documents to provide nursing home asset protection abilities which almost all older estate plans do not now contain. Our practice also includes special needs trusts planning, as well as conventional living trust estate planning, and trust administration.

Mr. Hanson is a Pleasant Hill - Walnut Creek, California attorney with 32 years of estate planning experience, the last 20 years of which have been focused exclusively on the elder law, nursing home, and long term care asset protection planning issues described above, as well as special needs trusts, traditional living trust estate planning, and trust administration. He is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and the Trusts and Estates Section of the California State Bar.

In those circumstances where the exorbitant cost of nursing home care is an expected or even an immediate "emergency" issue, Mr. Hanson offers seniors and their families reasonably-priced initial meetings to carefully discuss the options which are available - options which can minimize or eliminate the loss of assets which the Medi-Cal "spend-down" requirements impose - and thereby also ease the anxiety and uncertainty which these situations can create.

Frequently with Mr. Hanson's assistance, and the participation of his clients and family, a significant and sizeable savings can be accomplished.

Although Mr. Hanson endeavors to assist his clients in preserving their assets and avoiding nursing home care, in those circumstances where nursing home care has become a permanent medical necessity, he has managed, over the years, to save his clients and clients' families literally millions of dollars in assets, and has, in that process, protected client assets and estates from Medi-Cal "liens" and estate claims, unnecessary income taxes, excessive property taxes, and otherwise unnecessary legal expenses.

Often, clients will only need a few changes or updates to their existing estate plan documents - to install an array of protective options for the benefit of spouses and children - in order to deal more effectively with an eventual incapacity or the possibility of future nursing home care.

On the other hand, if nursing care is already being administered, and nursing care expenses are already being charged, there are still options to protect assets for a spouse and family.

Areas of Practice

• Elder Law, Nursing Home Medi-Cal Asset Protection Planning 60%
• Long Term Care Planning, Protective Estate Planning 30%
• Trust Administration 10%

Classes and Seminars

• Lecturer, Estate Planning, Nursing Home Asset Protection Planning, Medi-Cal Eligibility

West Practice Categories

Estate Planning, Elder Law, Powers of Attorney and Appointment, Trusts, Wills, Medicare & Medicaid, Nursing Home, Estate Administration