Advocating for Pooled-Special Needs Trusts

Jack Sullivan (J.D. candidate 2010, Minnesota University) has published his student article entitled Pooled Special-Needs Trusts: An Exception That Should be the Rule to Protect Adults with Developmental Disabilities, 27 Law & Ineq. 441 (2009). 

This Article argues that every State should encourage the creation of pooled supplemental special-needs trusts and then should make such trusts the default option for developmentally disabled citizens who are heirs to an intestate parent. Part I describes the demographic and societal trends that have allowed the population of people with developmental disabilities to flourish, how those Americans rely on Medicaid, and how families with the means and ability to plan can avoid Medicaid’s benefit pitfalls. Part II describes the laws of intestacy and the Uniform Probate Code, the vehicle through which state-by-state changes should be sought.

Finally, Part III argues that the Uniform Probate Code should be amended so that states will have a model for a new default rule that presumes that inherited assets passed after an intestate death should go into the sort of pooled trust now allowed under federal law. This change would protect families who lack the financial means necessary to draft a trust or a will to protect benefit eligibility for those with developmental disabilities.