One of the last interviews given by Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis imparted a few words of wisdom which I have always tried to live by. She told her interviewer that the most important accomplishment of her life was getting her children to love each other. Unfortunately, as an article in today’s Long Island Business News shows, this advice is generally honored in the breach. With parents living longer, it appears that guardianship battles between their children are on the increase nationally and attorneys in the practice of elder law are experiencing a litigation component of their practices which they had never anticipated. The sibling rivalries of childhood are now played out by baby boomer adults across the country in courtrooms where the prize is which sibling gets to take care of an aging parent — and control that parent’s fortune. As the article reports in an update of the litigation surrounding New Jersey widow Lillian Glasser (a topic often found in this blog), millions of dollars can be in play as families are torn asunder and an entire new discipline is developing in order to focus upon new ways to deal with the problems caused by these disputes.
