Standby Guardianships

Joshua S. Rubenstein (Co-Managing Partner, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, New York, NY) has recently published his article entitled Standby Guardianship Legislation: At the Midway Point, 33 ACTEC J. 2 (2007).

Mr. Rubenstein explains that “[s]tandby guardianship legislation allows a parent or guardian who suffers from a progressively chronic or irreversibly fatal illness to ensure the current, effective appointment of a guardian of the person or property of his or her minor children to act sometime in the future during the lifetime of the parent without affecting existing parental rights.”

The conclusion of his article provides:

The past decade has seen the enactment of many new standby guardianship statutes. Currently, half of the states and the District of Columbia have incorporated such statutes into their bodies of law.  Hopefully, the remaining states will follow suit in the next decade, protecting the ability of terminally ill residents to provide and protect their children as fully as in the rest of the country.