Sheppard, Brett, Stewart. Hersch, Kinsey & Hill, P.A.
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“Mr. Hersch, I wouldn’t trust you to represent me in a parking ticket dispute!”was one of his more humorous jabs I can relay in a family-friendly newsletter.
Craig R. Hersch Florida Bar Board CertifiedWills, Trusts & Estates Attorney; CPA
Some of my classmates, including one who is now President of the Florida Bar, complained to the dean about Professor Van Alstyne’s tactics and salty language, but I understood the goal. An ability to think calmly under pressure was necessary for our careers. Despite the frequent jabs, “Scotty,” as we affectionately called him, became one of my favorite professors. He even hired me as his teaching assistant during my third year of law school, the final stretch before graduating. Yet, just before the last semester of our third and final year, the Bar decided that all law students would be required to successfully complete an ethics course to graduate. Because our curriculum was set, they squeezed Ethics 101 into an already jam-packed schedule. You may have heard that in the first year of law school, they scare you to death, in the second year, they work you to death, and in the third year, they bore you to death. The third year is particularly difficult to survive because most students have jobs lined up. However, our ethics professor didn’t show us sympathy. He was a recent graduate himself, but the worst was the starting time of his two-hour class — 7:30 a.m. every Thursday. On Wednesday evenings, CJ’s, a local oyster bar, featured $2 pitchers of beer for law students. CJ’s was rustic, complete with cement floors, picnic tables, and a jukebox. I have great memories of eating greasy wings and singing Jimmy Buffet tunes arm-and-arm with my classmates atop the tables into the wee hours of the night. It’s also where another classmate (who would later become my sister-in-law) introduced me to Patti and her sparkling green eyes. When summoned, I jumped off a table to introduce myself, sloshing a red Solo cup full of beer following a rousing rendition of “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” But that’s a story for another time. So, you can imagine how we fared during this sunrise class. After one particularly rowdy evening, the professor bellowed, “Mr. Hersch, a man walks into your office with a smoking gun, slams it down on your desk, and says, ‘I just shot a man with this gun.’What do you do?”
A Valuable Law School Lesson I was 18 years old when my dad dropped me off as a freshman on the front steps of my dorm at the University of Florida. “You’re on your own now,”Dad said shaking my hand, “you know your mother and I don’t have funds to help you.” As my parents and younger sister drove away, I wondered how I was going to earn the degrees I aspired to. Seven years later, I earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accounting then went on to earn a juris doctorate in law. I completed an eight-year program in just seven, often working two jobs at a time to cover expenses. I finished my studies with Patti as my fiancée. As school starts again (maybe?) for a new— albeit unique — school year, I can’t help but become nostalgic, particularly with the many memories I have from the University of Florida’s College of Law. Whenever I recall my law school days, I’m often reminded of the hardened, knowledgeable professors who didn’t humor our quick wit, but taught us so much more than we could find in our textbooks. One such professor was Scott Van Alstyne. He wasn’t your standard law scholar; he became a professor after a storied legal career including stints as the managing partner at two large, well-respected law firms in Chicago and Milwaukee. To this day, I can hear his nasally upper-Midwestern accent as he chastised me and my classmates for our dumb answers.
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August 2020
‘Dad, HowDo I?’ How One Father Is Passing Along Life Lessons
realized he still had life lessons to pass on. After thinking about other young people in the world who have gone through the same unfortunate experience as he did, he decided to do something about it. In early April 2020, Kenney created a YouTube channel called “Dad, how do I?” and uploaded his first video, titled “How to tie a tie.” In the video, he gives a helpful hint for choosing a tie. Then he talks viewers through the process of how to tie a tie while demonstrating it on himself. As April progressed, Kenney uploaded a number of videos on other seemingly simple tasks, including how to unclog a sink, check the oil in a car, install a shelf, and even how to shave. As he continued uploading videos, he started to include dad jokes along the way. “So today I’m going to show you how to use a stud finder,” Kenney begins in one video. “If you came here looking for help finding a boyfriend, that would be a different stud finder.” Kenney hopes that, by uploading these videos, he can be there for someone who doesn’t have a parent around to teach them these things. And in the course of just two months, it looks like he is already doing just that. At the end of May, Kenney’s channel had over 2 million subscribers and thousands of people have reached out to Kenney to share their own similar experiences and express their gratitude and appreciation for everything he’s doing.
Being abandoned by a parent is one of the most devastating things that can happen to a child. Rob Kenney experienced this trauma firsthand when his father said he no longer wanted any of his eight children. Kenney was only 12 years old when his father walked out of his life. In an interview with Q13 News in Seattle, Kenney explained that after that experience, he decided that when he had children of his own, he would raise them into good adults and make sure they didn’t have a fractured childhood. But he didn’t stop there.
Now 50, Kenney has a 29-year-old daughter and 27-year-old son who are living
successful lives thanks to that
decision he made many years before. However, even with an empty nest, Kenney
SW Florida Responds to Harry Chapin Food Bank’s Needs And They Still Need Your Support!
Bank estimates that it has distributed more than 10,865,269 pounds of food to five surrounding counties, due to generous donations from the community.
At the Sheppard Law Firm, we believe our Fort Myers community — including those who join us for the winter — often bands together to support others in need, and 2020 has been no different. This year’s pandemic has created many trying obstacles, and we all have been affected by it. This spring, the Harry Chapin Food Bank, which has served Southwest Florida since its inception as Lee County Food Cooperative in 1983, asked for more donations to feed growing numbers of community members in need of help. Typically, the organization serves 28,000 individuals each week, but in June, it estimated that the community’s needs were increasing by 40%. As unemployment rates skyrocketed, more families sought help from the food bank that distributed 26.7 million pounds of food in 2018–2019. Southwest Florida responded immediately, and even our own team members, like attorney Craig Hersch and his family, donated goods to the organization. The overall response was overwhelming. As of June, the Harry Chapin Food
“This is a truly remarkable achievement for our community,” the food bank wrote in a late- June blog post. “It is humbling to ponder what we have
overcome: hoard shopping, government shutdowns, school closures, massive disruption in food supply channels, and yet we have distributed 9,054,391 meals to those who need food. Incredible. Gratitude abounds.” But the need for donations hasn’t decreased. In fact, the food bank estimates that its expenditures —which have jumped to $1 million each month —will remain high as they continue to purchase and feed the community for the foreseeable future. If you are in a position to give monetarily, you can donate directly at Donate.HarryChapinFoodBank.org . The organization is asking people to limit donations of food items to slow the spread of COVID-19. They are also encouraging those who would like to do more to consider hosting a virtual food drive with monetary donations or check out volunteer opportunities at HarryChapinFoodBank.org.
Thank you for your continued support! We are in this together.
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‘Google U’’ Trust the Legal Experts —Not the Internet —When Drafting Your Estate Plan In his weekly column, Craig Hersch offers expert advice on the legal pitfalls of trusting everything you read online. Below is an edited snippet fromhis column, “Google U.” You can read the full version at SBSHLaw.com. what they’ve found as the gospel, providing many with confidence that they can self-diagnose and solve a legal issue, like estate planning.
I call these people Google U graduates. FYI, that degree isn’t worth much!
Several years ago, when my mother was first diagnosed with acute myelodysplastic leukemia, the first thing that I did was search Google to learn more about the disease. The more I searched, the more confusing everything became. There was a lot of information from various sources that all appeared credible. The problemwith internet searches is that without specific knowledge about the issue you’re searching, you might take something out of context. You also don’t know if the source of the information you’re finding has any bias or how credible that source might be. When we find information on the internet related to medical issues, we usually bring that information to the physician treating us and ask them about what we’ve found. That’s largely because medicine is a complex science, and we realize that we need guidance when dealing with a specialized field. For some reason, however, I’ve found in my more than 30 years of practice that some laypeople don’t have the same regard for the law. In other words, they’ll run a few searches on the internet and take
Consider, for example, a couple in their second marriage, where each partner has children from a prior marriage. The husband searches Google and finds that he can create a “marital trust” for his wife that will provide her income for life and revert back to his children upon her death.
So he logs on to LegalZoom and creates a trust. No need for expensive lawyers, right? (Wrong.)
Without the proper education, training, and experience, you’re unlikely to recognize all of the legal and tax issues that apply to your situation, and therefore you can’t possibly select the type of plan and the provisions required to accomplish your goals. The best planners are creative in that they first listen to their clients’ goals and concerns, and then, after considering the type and value of the assets owned, they fashion a plan to meet those goals. Take Google U for what it’s worth: a starting point. For the best results, take what you’ve learned from your online education and ask for guidance from a seasoned professional.
C o v e r a r t i c l e c o n
Still groggy and hoarse from the night before, I smiled broadly and said, “I would tell him to get the hell out of my office as I’m a tax attorney, I don’t practice criminal defense law!”The class erupted in laughter, and I beamed with pride at my own cleverness. The professor, clearly not amused, and due to his youth was sensitive about perceived challenges to his authority. He stared me down as the laughter dissipated, resulting in an awkward silence. Only then did he growl at me to visit with him after class. Once in his office, I was met with a seemingly endless diatribe, lasting so long that I missed my next class. He didn’t like my joke, eventually marking me with a C+ for the semester despite my feeling that I nailed the final (my other grades that term included 4 As and a B+). I laugh now when recalling the experience, but I learned a valuable lesson about when to keep wisecracks to myself. It’s been more than 31 years since I graduated from law school, but there will always be something special about the time I spent in Gainesville. It was hard work, but the professors, nights at CJ’s, and the expertise I left with made all the work, studying, and late nights worth it. – Craig Hersch
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INSIDE this issue
Attorney Craig Hersch Remembers His Law School Days....................................1
Rob Kenney Is a Father to Many..............2
Donate to the Harry Chapin Food Bank!.....................................................2
Craig Hersch’s Column: Trust the Experts, Not ‘Google U’................................3
Are Your Thrift Store Donations Being Thrown Away?..............................................4
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Are you thinking about donating your kids’old clothes or that slow cooker you haven’t used inmonths? Though donating your unwanted items is a great thing to do, amid the pandemic, many people have not considered the future of secondhand shopping and charity-based thrift stores like Goodwill. In 2018, Goodwill funded nearly $5.3 billion in charitable services, like educational assistance, job training, and work placements. But now, Goodwill and similar organizations are facing a unique problem: They’re receiving toomany donations. To prevent your items from ending up in a landfill, consider the following before you donate. Under the circumstances, this situation is understandable. Thanks to nationwide stay-at-home orders, many took advantage of their newfound spare time to spring-clean and subsequently donate unwanted items to charity. However, with the confusion about how long the COVID-19 virus can live on clothing, secondhand shoppers have been staying home, worried about the health risks of buying used goods.
Famously, thrift stores still keep unsold goods out of landfills. Up to 75% of Goodwill’s merchandise, for example, isn’t sold in their stores. Instead, it’s sent to discount outlets and then into global markets. However, Mexican traders, who account for 30% of business at thrift stores
close to the U.S. southern border, and Kenya, the world’s largest buyer of unsold secondhand clothes, have stopped buying during the economic shutdown.
Meanwhile, some good-intentioned Americans are leaving their goods outside thrift stores’ front doors, not realizing that without enough space to house the excess donations, many of these thrift stores will have to pay disposal fees, costing the business potential revenue and sending your items into local landfills. However, Goodwill still wants your donations! You just might have to hold on to your items for a little bit. Check to see if your local thrift stores are open for donations. Many recommend waiting until the influx slows down, but others have expanded their inventory storage and are ready to keep up. Just make sure to follow their guidelines on acceptable items because any broken or worn items only add to their costs. Happy donating!
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