Lindquist and Vennum’s Bob McLeod has been instrumental in the current revision process, as he was in the initial development of the forms and subsequent revisions. Many of the substantive updates are a result of his expertise, and we are very grateful to be working with him during this process.

For more information on what has changed and why we decided to revise the forms, see our first post announcing the revised forms.

Revised Forms

The forms are on 3 pages: Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Joint Guardianship and Conservatorship (with forms for minors on each page). Revised forms posted in November are:

• GC-12G – Notice of Intent to Dispose of Clothing, Vehicles, Furniture, or Other Personal Effect
• GC-13s through 14s – forms regarding Discharge of Conservator
• GC-16s – Orders Allowing Final or Annual Accounts, Discharging Conservator
• GC-17s through GC-20s – forms regarding Emergency/Temporary Guardianship/Conservatorship (minor and adult)
• GC-21s through 24s – various forms regarding the sale of real estate in a Conservatorship. Note: The 21-series forms were renumbered. Previously they were GC-21JTxx, and they are now GC-21Cxx, which is more consistent with the fact that these forms pertain only to conservatorships. They will still appear on the joint guardianship and conservatorship page as they may be needed for a joint proceeding.
• GC-25s through GC-27s – forms regarding Restoration to Capacity
• GC-28C – Notice of Claim
• GC-28G – Petition for Termination of Guardianship and Discharge of Guardian
• GC-29G – Order Confirming Termination of Guardianship and Discharge of Guardian
• Misc-4 and Misc-5 – In Forma Pauperis forms

Click here for a list of forms revised in June, and here for a list of form revised in September.

How can you check whether the form you’re using is updated? Check the date in the footer of the form. June 2011 and later are revised.

Other Important Revisions

The Order Appointing Conservator (GC-08C and GC-08JT) was republished with new paragraphs in the Conclusions of Law. Prior versions stated that the Respondent was incapacitated. This is the requirement for a guardianship but not a conservatorship, so the orders were updated to reflect the appropriate standards under the conservatorship statute.

The Petitions and Affidavits of Service, which were published in June and September, respectively, were updated to change new language from “interested parties” to “interested persons.”

Retired Forms

Please note that we’ve taken down several forms, mostly due to duplication. These forms were also retired:

• GC-21JTV – County Assessor’s Market Evaluation
• Misc-1 and Misc-2 forms – Petitions and Orders for New Letters. These were a holdover from the transition to the new statutes under the UPC in 2003. All guardianships and conservatorships should have been transitioned by now.
• All PDFs (All duplicates of the Word forms, and had low usage. More information in our earlier post.)
• Several joint guardianship/conservatorship forms which were identical to conservatorship-only forms.

If you are looking for one of the retired JT (joint guardianship and conservatorship) forms, look for the form with the same number but with a C instead of the JT designator. These forms have always been identical except for the caption, and on this round of editing we decided that even the caption did not need to be different — it is appropriate to say just “conservatorship” on these matters even if there is also a guardianship.

As always, let us know if you have any comments, questions, or feedback on the new forms!

© Andrea for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: conservatorship, guardianship

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Or are you still looking for a job but starting to think about opening your own firm instead?

This week we’re welcoming many new graduates to our profession. If you’re one of them and are thinking about flying solo, we want to help you get started on the right foot. 

Whether you’ve already taken your first steps or are still considering your options, we’d like to cordially invite you to join PracticePack, a group created exclusively for new solos by the Minnesota State Bar Association.  PracticePack started last year and is a great resource, giving new lawyers a chance to learn the ropes from experts and from each other. Our new year kicks off at our next meeting in November.

Who?  PracticePack focuses on lawyers going straight from law school to solo or small firm practice, whether they’ve just graduated or have been job-searching. If you’ve already been working as a lawyer, this might not be the group for you since we not only work on getting your firm off the ground but we also provide support for those who have never practiced before.

What? Monthly meetings with your peers and guest speakers to get your firm up and running. At our November meeting we will cover the practical basics of actually getting your firm in place (filing with the Secretary of State, setting up a bank account, malpractice insurance, etc.). Members from last year’s group will also field questions about what they’ve learned about the realities of solo life such as budgeting and dealing with student loans.

Some of the topics we have planned for future meetings include: trust accounts and bookkeeping; tech on a budget; building your own website (we’ll be building them at the meeting); and practical ethics. In addition, there’ll be time to ask questions about what’s happening in your practice (including that question that you think is “too dumb” to ask other lawyers).

In between meetings, the MSBA will sponsor a private forum (sort of like a Facebook feed) just for PracticePack participants where you can chat, network, and ask for help.

When? November 15, and the plan is to have all meetings on the 3rd Tuesday of every month. This meeting is planned for 7:30-9:30 am. We may revisit the time for future meetings, but the meetings tend to take up a full two hours and we don’t want to eat half your day.

Where? TBD.  Sign up (link below) and we’ll keep you posted by email.

Why? Because we want you to succeed!

How? Sign up is located at this page:  www.mnbar.org/practicepack

© Andrea for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: PracticePack

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Lindquist and Vennum’s Bob McLeod is instrumental in the current revision process, as he was in the initial development of the forms and subsequent revisions. Many of the substantive updates are a result of his expertise, and we are very grateful to be working with him during this process.

For more information on what has changed and why we decided to revise the forms, see our last post announcing the revised forms.

Revised Forms

The forms are on 3 pages: Guardianship, Conservatorship, and Joint Guardianship and Conservatorship (with forms for minors on each page). Revised forms posted in September are:

• 2-series – Affidavit of Personal Service (6 forms)
• 3-series – Affidavit of Service by Mail (6 forms) (Note modifications to make this fit service either before or after the guardianship or conservatorship is ordered)
• 6-series – Notice of Hearing and Notice of Rights (6 forms)
• 7-series – Physician’s Statement (3 forms)
• 9-series – Notice of Entry of Order and Right to Appeal (6 forms)
• 11.1-C – Conservatorship Confidential Information Form 11
• 11.2-C – Conservatorship Financial Source Documents Form 11.2
• 13-C – Inventory
• 14-C – Annual Account or Final Account
• 15-C – Notice of Time and Place of Hearing on Annual Account
• 15-CF – Notice of Time and Place of Hearing on Final Account
• 15-CFD – Notice of Time and Place of Hearing on Final Account and Discharge of Conservator
• 15-CVF – Verification of Funds on Deposit
• 15-CVS – Verification of Stocks and Other Securities

Click here for a list of forms revised in June.

How can you check whether your form is updated? Look for: 1) The date in the footer of the form. June 2011 and later are revised. 2) Whether the form has a PDF counterpart listed on practicelaw. As part of the revision process we are dropping most of the PDFs because of low usage.

Retired Forms

Please note that we’ve taken down several forms, mostly due to duplication.

• 14-JT Annual Account or Final Account (Joint G/C)
• 15-JTA – Notice of Time and Place of Hearing on Annual Account (Joint G/C)
• 15-JTF – Notice of Time and Place of Hearing on Final Account (Joint G/C)
• 15-JTFD – Notice of Time and Place of Hearing on Final Account and Discharge of Conservator (Joint G/C)
• 15-JTVF – Verification of Funds on Deposit (Joint G/C)
• 15-JTVS – Verification of Stocks and Other Securities (Joint G/C)
• Misc-C-7 – Visitor’s Report (Conservatorship)
• Misc-G-7 – Visitor’s Report (Guardianship)
• All PDFs (All duplicates of the Word forms. Why? See above and our last post.)

If you are looking for one of the retired JT (joint guardianship and conservatorship) forms, look for the form with the same number but with a C instead of the JT designator. These forms have always been identical except for the caption, and on this round of editing we decided that even the caption did not need to be different — it is appropriate to say just “conservatorship” on these matters even if there is also a guardianship.

The visitor’s report was removed because it is not a form attorneys need to use or  edit. A PDF visitor’s report can be found on the judicial branch website (Form GAC105).

As always, let us know if you have any comments, questions, or feedback on the new forms!

© Andrea for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: conservatorship, guardianship

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I’ve collected my thoughts and want to share my top takeaway points:

Marketing & Practice Management

• Get involved in your community. Show that you care, that you aren’t there to just take a dollar out, but that you want to put one back in too.
• Make a Business Plan. Businesses with a written business plan make 10-15% more than those without.
• Try (and track!) several approaches to marketing: “Half of advertising works. I just wish I knew which half.”
• Sign up for mnfindalawyer.com. Ok, sounds like shameless self-promotion (it’s an MSBA site), but at one of the breakout sessions a few people mentioned getting more referrals from mnfindalawyer than at other much more expensive directory sites.

Clients

• Statistics show that customers will recommend a business with excellent service significantly more than one with good service. (People talk about things they hate and love more than things they are just okay with!)
• Care more about how your client feels about the result than about the result itself. For example, If you go to a coffee shop and have an awful experience but the coffee is great, you still won’t like that coffee shop.
• Don’t assume your clients know you value them. Thank them for their business.

Technology

• Don’t use black boxes to redact text in Adobe. You need to use the actual redact tool or people can still get at the text.
• Your best password is at least 12 characters, numbers and letters, mixed case, and not a real word.
• You can lock PDFs to prevent printing (and thus scanning/OCR), and you can also lock track changes on in Word to prevent someone from slipping in unseen changes.

Trends & Predictions

Carolyn Elefant identified 3 business trends we should apply to legal services:

• Hyperlocal: A business operating in a well-defined community, intended for and created by residents of the area.
• Bespoke on a Budget: Custom service tailored to specific needs, but uses technology to do this on a budget.
• Legal Triage: Handling just the parts of a proceeding that are most important, this is a form of unbundled legal services.

Matt Homann‘s 2020 predictions:

• Clients will be older.
• Clients will be more informed than ever.
• 80% of content will be consumed on a mobile device.

Want more? Here are our reflections on last year’s conference.

© Andrea for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Marketing, Minnesota CLE, SoloSmall, Technology

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

As I was watching the videos, I did a mental inventory of my office. Many of the tools suggested better apply to a more “traditional” law firm, so I started out feeling pretty good since I keep a “paperless” office. Seriously, even though you might feel weird about getting rid of paper, it’s actually more secure to keep just the electronic copy — lawyers with good paperless office systems can be back up and running within a few hours of a disaster (and some of the MLM materials talk about switching to paperless for just this reason). But my big takeaway was that is that it’s often the current files — what’s on your desk, the floor — that are often the first to go as they’re the most susceptible to fire or water damage. And as most of you know, any current file is often far more indispensable than a 5-year old file that might be damaged.

So I’ve resolved to be better about getting everything into electronic format more quickly, and to better capture items that aren’t always electronic. For me, that means scanning intakes and notes right away, not just when the file is closed. Also scanning some accounting items that often stay in paper form until the end of the year, such as receipts for business expenses and carbon copies of checks and deposit slips. Keeping a box of checks in a fireproof safe was another tip I picked up from the videos.

Of course this all assumes you’re backing up your electronic files. I’m not sure how many of you do this, but I’ve heard that it’s a good rule of thumb to keep one copy in the office and one out of the office. Your out-of-the-office copy would typically be cloud-based, such as Mozy, Dropbox, or Carbonite. The in-office copy would be on an external harddrive or tape system. I’m bad at remembering to back up manually to the harddrive, so I’m happy that the other options run automatically every day or even any time your computer is idle.

Have you taken the necessary steps to protect your office from disaster? Good at keeping up just part of your system? Let us know in the comments.

© Andrea for Practice Blawg, 2011. | Permalink | No comments yet | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Disaster Planning

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh