Your client’s child with a disability is about to turn 18. Overnight, parents will lose the legal authority to make medical, financial, and educational decisions they have exercised without question for years. At the same time, the young adult may become independently eligible for Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicaid, and other public benefit programs that have rules the family has never encountered.

Families facing this transition increasingly turn to attorneys for guidance, yet the intersection of guardianship and conservatorship, special needs trusts, Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) accounts, benefits eligibility, supported decision-making, and educational rights is rarely covered in a single practice area. The result is fragmented advice that can cost the client benefits, autonomy, or both.

This session walks through the critical planning points that arise when a minor with a disability reaches adulthood, using real-world scenarios: the parents who waited too long to establish authority, the trust that disqualified the beneficiary from SSI, the ABLE account that worked, and the school district that resisted providing services after age 18.

You will learn the following: 

• why the eighteenth birthday triggers a loss of parental decision-making authority and what legal alternatives exist
• how to evaluate whether a full guardianship or conservatorship is necessary or whether less restrictive options, such as supported decision-making agreements, powers of attorney, or limited conservatorships, will serve the client
• when and how to establish a special needs trust or ABLE account without jeopardizing public benefits
• how SSI eligibility changes at eighteen, when parental authority ends and eligibility is redetermined under adult disability rules
• what educational rights survive the transition from K–12 services