Estate Planning Lessons Learned, Part 7

Dwayne Carter, otherwise known by this stage name Lil Wayne, was hospitalized in critical condition in the Intensive Care Unit this month after he suffered from several severe seizures. The primary lesson to learn is that it is important for a person to have their health care and advance directive documents ready in case they are needed. According to Evan Guthrie, “[a]dvance directives are legal documents that allow for a person to express what kind of health care they want or not want in a written form.” The most common type of health care directive is a health care power of attorney. This type of document allows a person to appoint an agent to make decisions on behalf of the person who made the power of attorney. Without this type of document, a family member is usually left to make the difficult decisions.

Lil Wayne did not have this type of document and so his mother had to fly in to make his health care decisions. He was only 30 years old, which shows that really a person can never be too young to make a health care power of attorney. Lil Wayne did not also have a durable power of attorney, which would appoint someone to manage his financial assets. This could have also been helpful when Wayne spent time in jail in 2010. The durable power of attorney would have appointed someone to take care of his affairs.

See Lil Wayne: Estate Planning Lessons About The Rock Star Lifestyle, Estate Planning At Evan Guthrie Law Firm, Mar. 18, 2013.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.)) for bringing this article to my attention.