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Finalizing a Divorce? Wait, Just One More Thing '

By Yolanda Kanes

There is hardly anything more stressful in life than divorce. Indeed, according to the often quoted Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, which analyzed the impact of 43 specified life events on general health, divorce and marital separation came just behind “death” at the top of the list. Thomas H. Holmes and Richard H. Rahe, The Social Readjustment Rating Scale, J Psychosom Res, Volume 11, Issue 2, August 1967, pp. 213-218. It should therefore come as no surprise that, at the end of all the legal and emotional wrangling in finalizing a divorce, clients (and, often, their lawyers) are loathe to tackle issues addressing end-of-life.

As an estate-planning attorney, I find that one of the biggest obstacles in accomplishing effective planning is getting clients to embrace the idea that estate planning is not “finished” when the Will, Power of Attorney and Health Care Proxy are done; it is a fluid process, requiring periodic review and adjustment in the face of changing life circumstances. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of a divorce. It may not technically be part of the matrimonial lawyer's wheelhouse to review, re-structure and execute a client's estate plan, but the newly single client's changed circumstances should include a discussion of his or her estate, and how plans for it might need to be adjusted in the face of a finalized divorce.

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