Elder Law and the VA: How to Handle Today's Issues

My entire professional career has focused on death, dying, and pre-planning. I started out my professional career as a licensed mortician. It is not all as macabre as you may think! I find peace in helping my clients and their family prepare for the "inevitable" (death and taxes), and make life's transitions easier.

I help clients navigate estate planning, as they focus on asset growth, to long-term care planning, where the focus shifts to asset preservation and care. After a death occurs, I help resolve contested Will or Trust issues (litigation), counsel on Medical Assistance claims, and guide families through the probate process.

I obtained my law degree from the University of St. Thomas School of Law and earned Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Minnesota in Biology, Physiology, and Mortuary Science. My background and experience as a licensed mortician provides me with a unique perspective in both estate planning and elder law.

I enjoy a broad-based Estate and Elder Law practice, with emphasis on long-term care planning, asset protection, government benefits, estate planning, estate administration (probate), trusts, litigation, and mortuary law.

Judge Michael Allen was nominated by the President of the United States in June 2017. He was confirmed by the United States Senate and appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims in August 2017. United States District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich of the Middle District of Florida administered the judicial oath to Judge Allen on August 11, 2017.

For 16 years before his judicial appointment, Judge Allen was a tenured full professor of law at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport, Florida. He was also the director of Stetson's Veterans Law Institute, and he spent 4 years as the College of Law's associate dean. Judge Allen also served as a visiting professor of law at the University of Illinois College of Law. Before entering teaching, Judge Allen practiced law for 9 years in the litigation department of the Boston based international law firm Ropes & Gray