Maryland Estate Planning Attorney: What is a Guardian Panel?

As an alternative to naming guardians in a Will you could create a guardian panel with instructions on selecting guardians for your children. For a free, confidential conversation to discuss these and other estate planning matters, or to create your own estate plan, contact Maryland estate planning attorney Stephen J. Reichert at 410-299-4959, sreichert@reichertlegal.com or by clicking here.

The guardian panel comes with some risk and careful consideration should be given. For example, the panel could make a decision that you would (if alive) disapprove of. No matter how many instructions and stipulations you create for the panel they ultimately have (by vote typically) final decision power and the court is unlikely to intervene in a poor decision unless the second problem occurs: that a minority voting member of the panel is so displeased they challenge the panel’s decision in court. At that point the court would likely reject the decision of the panel and open guardianship to litigation where interested guardians would make the case (a) why they should be the guardian and (b) why certain other potential guardians should not be named guardian. As you can see this puts potential guardians against each other in unpleasant litigation. And there are court cost, lawyers fees, etc.

Additionally, a guardianship panel places a tremendous responsibility on other individuals, and the selection and creation of the panel can be a challenge. For example: do you include two people from one spouse’s family and one person from the other spouse’s family? Or one member from each and a friend, but who’s friend (which spouse’s friend)? It can become difficult and create hard feelings between family members, and friends, who would probably wish you’d have named a guardian and successor guardians!

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t create a guardian panel in your Will it if it is something you’ve strongly considered and think is best for your children. Though this is something you should discuss with your attorney while creating your overall estate plan.

For a free, confidential conversation to discuss these and other estate planning matters, or to create your own estate plan, contact Maryland estate planning attorney Stephen J. Reichert at 410-299-4959, sreichert@reichertlegal.com or by clicking here.

Day, evening and weekend appointments are available in office or at your residence. Mr. Reichert personally serves clients in Baltimore, Baltimore County, Anne Arundel County, Howard County, Carroll County, Harford County, Frederick County and Montgomery County.