Wagner Law

11/17/2025

🛡️ **IMMIGRATION AND CHILDREN LEFT BEHIND. Planning for Your Family's Future: Vermont's Standby Guardianship Law** 🛡️

Vermont has expanded its Guardianship laws to help parents facing immigration-related challenges plan for continuity of care during times of crisis.

**What is Standby Guardianship?**
A legal process that allows parents to designate a trusted guardian to care for their children if they become unavailable due to adverse immigration actions, including:
• Detention or arrest for alleged immigration violations
• Deportation or removal proceedings
• Visa denials or delays
• Denial of entry or admission to the U.S.

**Key Features:**
✅ **Voluntary & Informed** - Parents maintain control through court-approved consent
✅ **Emergency Options Available** - Ex parte orders possible when immediate action is needed
✅ **Parent-Centered** - Presumptive reunification when parent becomes available again
✅ **Remote Participation** - Parents can appear at hearings remotely
✅ **Reduced Barriers** - Relaxed notice requirements in emergency situations

**Why It Matters:**
This law provides peace of mind and ensures children have immediate care and stability during uncertain times, while prioritizing family reunification.

**Need Help?**
Contact [email protected]

11/17/2025

🏳️‍🌈 **Important Legal Protection for Vermont Families!** 🏳️‍🌈

Did you know that Vermont now offers a streamlined **Confirmatory Adoption** process for families formed through assisted reproduction?

**What makes it different?**
✅ No home study required (in most cases)
✅ No background checks needed (in most cases)
✅ Orders issued promptly
✅ Recognized in all 50 states
✅ Can't be undone

**Who can use it?**
Parents who conceived through:
• IUI, IVF, or donor gametes/embryos
• Any assisted reproduction method (excluding surrogacy)

**Why does it matter?**
While Vermont recognizes your family, not all states do. A confirmatory adoption decree provides the strongest legal protection when you travel or move, ensuring your parental rights are respected everywhere.

This is about **family security** and **peace of mind**. 💙

Interested in learning more? The Vermont Judiciary has model petitions available to make the process even easier.

📧 For questions about protecting your family: [email protected]

10/09/2023

Wire fraud is a federal crime that can land someone in prison for a maximum 20-year sentence in addition to fines. The statute of limitations on wire fraud is typically five years unless the wire fraud was associated with a financial institution, in which case prosecutors have 10 years to bring legal proceedings to the defendant.

Wire fraud describes any fraudulent activity that takes place over telecommunication or the internet.

10/07/2023

While there are different types of personal representatives – including trustees, conservators and legal guardians – the term often refers to two particular roles when it comes to a person’s estate: executors and administrators.

Personal representatives are tasked with managing estates when people die, either according to the terms of their will or the state laws that govern certain successions. An executor is a type of personal representative who’s specifically designated in someone’s will to carry out their final wish...

10/06/2023

Law enforcement all over the US are increasingly using tools called reverse search warrants – including geofence location warrants and keyword search warrants – to come up with a list of suspects who may have committed particular crimes.

In this week’s newsletter: ‘Geofence warrants’ tied a man in the wrong place at the wrong time to a crime he didn’t commit – is he the only one?

10/05/2023

Losing a close relative is hard enough without the added and completely avoidable hassles that occur in the absence of estate planning. That’s why focusing on the benefits involved in estate planning for you and your loved ones may be just the motivation you need to either create and finalize an estate plan or update the plan that you already have.

Estate planning not only makes things easier for your loved ones if you become incapacitated or when you’re gone, but it also does these three important things.

10/02/2023

In recent years, prisoners and their lawyers have challenged a number of forensic disciplines: from hypnosis to roadside drug tests to testimony about blood splatter, hair, photographs, burn patterns, bite marks, tire tracks and speech patterns. Since the 1980s, nearly a quarter of overturned convictions have featured “false or misleading forensic evidence,” according to the National Registry of Exonerations, a collaboration of several universities that tracks such cases.

A Texas man faces ex*****on for his daughter's death. Now science suggests it was an accident.

09/30/2023

Federal courts across the country disagree about whether the word, "and" as it is used in a bipartisan 2018 criminal justice overhaul, indeed means "and" or whether it means "or." The Supreme Court has stepped in to settle the dispute. What the justices decide could affect thousands of prison sentences each year.

Nearly 6,000 people convicted of drug trafficking in the 2021 budget year alone are in the pool of those who might be eligible for reduced sentences, according to data.

09/30/2023

Major changes in your life—such as marriage, having a baby, moving out of state, or divorce—should prompt a revisit to your current will.

Getting divorced? Here are some items you will need to remove or add to your will.

09/28/2023

Living trusts can add flexibility to your estate plan, but there are pros and cons to using them. When you decide on your estate plan, a trusted attorney can suggest options that fit your needs and efficiently pass assets to your heirs.

This legal document gives you flexibility and privacy for managing and distributing your assets, but there are pros and cons.

09/28/2023

On days when an oppressive sun strikes streets, temperatures spike and so do fatal car crashes. Over the last decade, researchers have investigated how temperature affects car crashes and found the same trend: hot weather increases the risk of fatal car crashes.

Hot cars are a health hazard for everyone on the road—and climate change could make things worse