Working With Margolis on Elder Law Asset Protection
I keep running into people trying to implement strategies from Margolis's publications without really reading what the books actually say they do. The Elder Law Portfolio Harry S Margolis is not a ready-made plan you can execute alone. It is a collection of annotated statutes, regulations, and practical guides compiled by a practitioner who has spent decades handling Medicaid and VA pension issues. The value is in the annotations and the cross-references, not in copy-pasting forms. The portfolio itself is organized by topic rather than by jurisdiction. You get a base set of model provisions, then Margolis's commentary on how those provisions interact with the underlying federal and state law. The most useful sections are the ones covering spousal refuses, countable versus exempt assets, and the transfer penalty calculation. Most people skip straight to the asset protection trusts because those look flashy. The real work happens in the transfer penalty math, and that is where the portfolio earns its price. I had a client two years ago who tried to use a raw Irrevocable Trust template from the portfolio without adjusting for their state's lookback period rules. The template assumes a federal baseline, but my state had adopted a longer recovery window for certain types of transfers. The application got rejected on the first review. What I ended up doing was pulling the state-specific supplement from the same portfolio, cross-referencing the citation Margolis provided, and then manually recalculating the penalty period using the adjusted divisor rate. It took me about three hours to redo what should have taken twenty minutes if I had just checked the jurisdictional note first.
The note is always there. It is easy to miss because it is buried in small type at the bottom of the page. Do not skip it. Another thing that trips people up is the difference between the portfolio's sample language and actual court-approved forms. Some states require exact statutory wording. The portfolio gives you functional equivalents that work in most places but will not survive a strict hearing officer review in states like California or New York. I learned this the hard way when a reviewer in San Francisco sent back a petition citing non-compliance with Welfare and Institutions Code section 14072.05. The fix was straightforward — I swapped the portfolio language for the exact statutory phrasing and added a compliance declaration. But I wasted a month on the first attempt. If you are using this for VA Aid and Attendance claims, the portfolio is solid. The pension calculation worksheets are accurate and the evidence checklists match what the regional offices actually request. The Medicaid sections are good too, but they require more manual verification because state implementation varies so widely. There is no substitute for checking your state's current regulations against whatever revision date is printed in the portfolio.
The biggest limitation is that the portfolio does not update in real time. You are working with a snapshot. I have seen provisions that were valid when the volume was published but later affected by legislative changes. Always verify the effective date on any statute you cite. A provision that looked clean in 2021 may have been amended in 2023, and Margolis's commentary may not reflect that yet unless you are on the latest revision cycle. The download versions are available through the publisher's website. You will need an active subscription or a one-time purchase depending on which component you want. The paper version is heavier but easier to flip through during a hearing prep session. I recommend the digital copy if you are doing ongoing research and the physical copy if you are preparing for a single case. Both are useful, but they serve different workflows. The practical approach is to treat the portfolio as a reference library, not a cookbook. Read the commentary before you touch the forms. Cross-reference every citation. Verify jurisdictional applicability. And do not assume that a strategy described in one chapter works unchanged in another context. The material is reliable when you use it carefully. It is dangerous when you treat it as turnkey.
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