Happy New Year!
Welcome to our January Newsletter...
We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and enjoyed your winter breaks from school! If you made a New Year's resolution to dust off your Special Needs and Estate Plans and make sure they are current, this is the newsletter for you. As promised, we've included the annual checklists in this issue. Please review them and consider if your plans need to be updated. If you have any questions, or would like to talk over your ideas, please contact us!

Clancy & Associates Ltd. is Illinois's only full-service special needs planning law firm dedicated to supporting individuals with special needs and their families. Our mission is to help families protect and empower their loved ones with a disability through streamlined, comprehensive planning. We use our innovative full-service approach to both identify opportunities and secure solutions and benefits for our clients at our Firm. We “keep watch” for families so they can attend to the daily priorities of their loved one’s life and leave the legal planning to us.

Cheers to a successful new year together!
Client Spotlight
Meet Isabel!

"We came to Clancy and Associates amid much personal turmoil and strain. They have been the calm within the storm, helping to allay all my concerns about preparing for my daughter's future, and guiding us carefully along each step on the path. I am so grateful for the peace of mind they have provided, and my daughter is in love with Katie's whole team!"
- Jane M., Isabel's mom
In the Community
Around the Office
Upcoming Events
đź“ť Checklists & Legal Matters
By proactively monitoring and updating your Plan and task list, you won’t miss important deadlines. If this checklist is reminding you that it's time to prepare your child's Special Needs Plan, we're here to help you begin.


Estate Plans (that is, parents' wills and trusts) are the foundation of a good Special Needs plan. Perhaps you prepared your documents decades ago, or have had significant changes since that should be incorporated. View the PDF to see if it's time for a redraft.
Starting this month, you will see increases in your social security checks. The cost-of-living adjustment in 2022 will be 5.9%, according to the Social Security Administration. The bump, which will help beneficiaries keep up with rising costs due to inflation, is the largest increase in about 40 years. Read More.
Thanks to recent changes in the tax code, there are opportunities for families to save substantial amounts of money at tax time. A professor from Arcadia University put together a complete checklist of some potential tax benefits that could be available to families. Highlights include Special Education, services and therapies, medical expenses, tax-deferred and tax-advantaged accounts.
If you have a child with disabilities, it is crucial to set money aside for the child’s future. At the same time, you need to consider your child’s access to public benefit programs such as Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income (SSI), as well as the state and federal tax implications. The two major vehicles to accomplish these goals, ABLE accounts and special needs trusts (SNTs), each have their advantages and limitations. Read More.
The federal government says it encourages people receiving federal disability payments to find jobs—but sometimes ends up discouraging them from working at all, a study has found. Read More.
đź’¬ Around the Office...
Spring Transitional Planning
We are at the forefront of Transition Planning! We look at Transition from many lenses, thanks to collaboration with our friends Dr. Lisa Konick of Konick and Associates, Rebecca Denman of PremierCare MyDay, Kim Garcia of Ferrari Resource Group, Inc. and Stacey Dembo of Dembo Law (not pictured).

As Special Needs Planning Attorneys, Psychologists, Vocational Consultants, Day Program providers and Social Security Attorneys, we have your transition issues covered. We are planning Transition Panels and Seminars for our clients and community - stay tuned for presentation dates. See how our Firm can help with Transition Planning Services.
Upcoming Events
Helping Hand: 5th Annual Gallery Night

Thursday, February 10, 2022

Each year this event recognizes the abilities of Helping Hand clients and helps our community better connect with people with disabilities through a shared passion for the arts. All proceeds support our programs that transform the lives of over 600 children, adults and their families each year.

Be sure to check out our Events Page regularly for more events.

📢 In the Community
Lunch and Learn Event Recap: Thrilled to collaborate with the Transition Team at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and share information about their Pediatric to Adult Care program.

When children with complex medical needs turn 18, parents often struggle to find specialists for adult care. At Lurie Children's, Dr. Shah and Angela Berger, LCSW, created a program to make this transition smooth and less daunting, and visited us to explain how it all works.

Planning for individuals with special needs and their families.
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