From proposals for new inheritance taxes to new consumer privacy laws, we have recently seen some significant developments in estate planning and business law. To ensure that you stay abreast of these legal changes, we have highlighted some noteworthy developments and analyzed how they may impact your estate planning and business law practice.

Federal law demands that states attempt to recover amounts expended on certain beneficiaries receiving Medicaid benefits. (See 42 U.S. Code § 1396p(b)) Namely, a state must attempt estate recovery for individuals who were aged 55 and up when they received benefits to pay for nursing home care, home and community-based services, and related hospital and prescription drug services.

Federal law defines estate as “all real and personal property and other assets included within the individual’s estate, as defined for purposes of State probate law.” However, the definition goes on to say that each state may pass laws to widen this definition, to include “any other real and personal property and other assets in which the individual had any legal title or interest at the time of death (to the extent of such interest), including such assets conveyed to a survivor, heir, or assign of the deceased individual through joint tenancy, tenancy in common, survivorship, life estate, living trust, or other arrangement.” If a state has passed such a law, then that state has expanded estate recovery.

If you have practiced business law for a decade or more, you may have experienced a noticeable shift in the demographics of your clients who own small businesses. Between 1972—the year the US Census Bureau began providing data on all woman-owned businesses—and 2019, the number of woman-owned businesses tripled. In recent years, this trend has accelerated. From 2007, the year of the Great Recession, to 2019, the number of woman-owned businesses grew by 58 percent. Forty-two percent of all businesses were woman-owned in 2019, compared to 4.6 percent in 1972. Nearly all (99.9 percent) woman-owned businesses are small businesses. Despite their growth in number and rate of success, woman-owned small businesses experience more challenges, such as less access to financing and slower growth, than businesses owned by men.