This program describes how to evaluate and defend a trustee’s decisions on Special Needs Trust
distributions. A professional fiduciary will face difficult decisions when a beneficiary seeks disbursement
for something that may be challenged by the Social Security Administration (SSA), a Probate Judge, the
Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), other family members, or some other person or entity. This
program lists the easiest SNT disbursements to make, along with those that require more analysis and
those that should be avoided. The speaker has spent decades successfully defending SNT trustee’s
decisions against the SSA, DHCS, court system, and many others. This program explains the best ways to
avoid trouble.
C4 – Evaluating and Defending Challenging Special Needs Trust Disbursement Requests
Speakers
Kevin Urbatsch, Esq.
The Urbatsch Law Firm, P.C.
Kevin Urbatsch is the principal of the special needs and settlement planning law firm, The Urbatsch Law Firm, in Berkeley, California. Kevin is a Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Trust, and Probate Law by the California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization. Kevin is a fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel (ACTEC). ACTEC is a nonprofit association of lawyers established in 1949. Its members comprise the top 1 percent of estate planning professionals from around the country. They are elected to the College by demonstrating the highest level of integrity, commitment to the profession, competence, and experience as trust and estate counselors.
Kevin serves as National Director of the Academy of Special Needs Planners (ASNP), a national organization of over 450 special needs planning professionals. Kevin has received several awards. In 2013, Parenting Magazine named Kevin one of the nation’s Top Child Advocates for his work in fighting for the rights of children with special needs. In May 2011, Kevin was presented the NAELA’s Presidential Recognition Award for his work in special needs planning. From 2010 through 2022, Kevin was named a Northern California Superlawyer. In 2009, Kevin was named KRON-TV’s Best of the Bay estate-planning attorney for Northern California.
In 2021, Kevin prepared a course for California’s Probate Judges on the legal background and issues for special needs planning and trusts before the court for California’s Center for Judicial Education and Research. The federal government flew him to Washington to do a program for the FFIEC Annual Conference to teach bank regulators the proper way to administer a special needs trust when a corporate fiduciary serves as an SNT trustee.