Lawyer Offers Pro Bono Services for Chronically Ill
Forbes.com featured a story on New Jersey-based attorney Marty Shenkman’s volunteer work in aid of persons with chronic illnesses. Shenkman’s wife, Patti Klein, had been diagnosed in 2006 with multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic, often disabling disease that attacks the central nervous system (CNS) characterized with mild or severe symptoms, from numbness to paralysis or vision loss.
From that time, Shenkman and wife had dedicated their time and energy to raising funds for the National MS Society, a national non-profit that focuses on research work and advocacy on MS.
Aided by their family and a group of friends, the couple has raised over $44,000 out of MS walkathons. Shenkman then thought of a more productive way to help not only MS patients, but all chronically ill individuals. He shifted his mode of giving to something he does best at – lawyering.
Shenkman has, for the past few years, volunteered hundreds of pro bono services to people with chronic illness. An estate planner who charges $500 an hour, he has devoted his time aiding people with chronic illness for free on how to plan their estate and manage their financial affairs.
Shenkman observed how his wife ran her professional life despite being afflicted with a chronic illness. As a result, he realized that people are wrong when they misjudge chronic illness as something that impairs ill patients cognitively, of which they must give up to a certain degree their control over their estate and finances to other people.
To supplement his free legal services, he published self-help estate planning books for the chronically ill, including Estate Planning for People with a Chronic Condition or Disability and Funding the Cure, with royalties on both going to charity. These books give helpful advice ranging from donations of household items, appreciate stock and retirement assets, trusts and bargains. He is currently writing a book for the Michael J. Fox Foundation.