2026 National Conference on Special Needs Planning and Special Needs Trusts

Main Conference
Thursday, October 22, 2026

8:00 a.m.-8:20 a.m.

Welcome and Announcements and TEAM Introduction
Becky Morgan and TEAM

8:20 a.m.-9:10 a.m.

Are the Machines in Charge? Using AI to Review Trusts and Other Things…
Mason Clark

Artificial intelligence tools are increasingly being used to review trust instruments, estate planning documents, and other complex legal materials—but how reliable are they, and where do the risks lie?

This session examines the practical realities of using AI, including what these tools do well, where they fall short, and the professional responsibility issues practitioners must keep in mind. It will walk through real-world examples of AI-assisted document review, discuss strategies for verifying AI output, and offer practical guidance on integrating these tools into a trusts and estates practice without sacrificing accuracy or client protection. Attendees will leave with a clearer sense of when to trust “the machines.”

9:10 a.m.-10:00 a.m.

SSA Update
Kathleen Romig
[Description coming soon]

10:00 a.m.-10:25 a.m.

Break and Visit with Sponsors and Exhibitors
Sponsored by Prudent Investors

10:25 a.m.-11:15 a.m.

Inherited IRAs and Trusts: Understanding and Applying the Current Rules
Craig Reaves
What happens to an inherited IRA depends on multiple variables, including the type and number of beneficiaries, when the IRA owner died, and whether a trust is named as beneficiary. This session provides a step-by-step framework for analyzing inherited IRAs payable to individuals and trusts to determine the applicable RMD requirements and distribution period, with a focus on the special rules for eligible designated beneficiaries who are disabled or chronically ill.

11:15 a.m.-12:05 p.m.

The POMS Problem: Deference, Distribution Decisions, and the Reality of Special Needs Trust Administration
Tara Anne Pleat and Ed Wilcenski
Special needs trust administration frequently turns on language in the Social Security Administration’s Program Operations Manual System (POMS), yet the guidance is often opaque, internally inconsistent, and applied unevenly. How much weight should POMS carry when interpreting trust terms or evaluating distributions? This session will examine the limits of POMS and agency deference, including existing scholarship on the role of administrative guidance in trust interpretation. The presenters will explore how trustees, attorneys, and courts navigate conflicting guidance and offer practical strategies for administering and defending distributions when federal guidance and state oversight collide.

12:05 p.m.-1:30 p.m.

Lunch
Sponsored by Key Bank

1:30 p.m.-2:20 p.m. Breakout Session 1

Tax Law Update
Bob Brogan
[Description coming soon]
The Bot, the Trust, and the Benefit Threat: Responding to AI-Driven SSA Scrutiny
Victoria Blair and Bridget Swartz
As SSA increasingly relies on AI-assisted review tools to evaluate special needs trusts, practitioners are seeing trust agreements scrutinized in new, and sometimes deeply flawed, ways. This session will examine a real-world pooled special needs trust review in which SSA challenged and attempted to dismantle key provisions of the trust agreement, imposed numerous requested changes, and ultimately got critical issues wrong. We will discuss the legal and practical response to SSA’s demands, strategies for defending compliant pooled trust language, and lessons learned for trustees, counsel, and advocates. The session will also explore how these AI-driven review issues may spill over into individual (d)(4)(A) trusts and Medicaid eligibility reviews, with practical guidance for anticipating challenges before they become benefit-threatening problems.
SSI Update
Kathleen Romig and Jennifer Burdick
A review of recent SSA policy changes and initiatives from the past year.
AI for Dessert
Roberta Flowers
[Description coming soon]

2:25 p.m.-3:15 p.m. Breakout Session 2

Veterans Benefits Law: An Overview
Hon. Michael Allen
This session will provide an overview of veterans benefits law. It is designed to highlight information necessary for practitioners to identify veterans benefits issues for clients they are advising on other matters. The presenter intends to provide ample time for questions.
Moving the Beneficiary to Another Country
Benji Rubin
There are issues about SSI vs CDB/DAC/SSDI and Medicare and Medicaid isn’t going to go with them of course, but also how the SNT will be treated in the new country with regard to that country’s disability benefits and services? I know in Canada they have a concept called Henson Trusts that is their analogue to 3^rd party SNTs but other countries have an entirely different system (this can be drafted for in US 3^rd party SNTs). Also related topic surrounds issues with SNTs owning foreign situs property.
Demystifying Social Security’s Childhood Disability Benefit
Christopher Smith
For families raising a child with a disability, few benefits are as valuable as Social Security’s Childhood Disability Benefit (formerly known as the Disabled Adult Child (DAC) benefit), and few are as complicated to understand and explain. This session shows who qualifies, how the benefit is calculated, and the costly mistakes that quietly disqualify families every day.
Navigating AI’s Wild West: Trends, Ethics, and Backlash in Legal Practice
Mason Clark

AI tools are multiplying faster than most practitioners can track, but so is the skepticism surrounding them. This session opens with a fast-paced tour of where AI stands today, including which models and platforms attorneys are using and the new wave of tools built specifically for trusts and estates work.

From there, we'll turn to the ethical minefield practitioners and clients are increasingly worried about—competence and supervision duties, confidentiality risks when sensitive client and beneficiary information is fed into public models, overreliance and the erosion of independent judgment, and the quieter problem of bias baked into training data that can disadvantage vulnerable beneficiaries, including individuals with disabilities. We’ll also look at why trust in these tools is fraying, fueling real doubts among judges, counsel, and clients about whether AI-assisted work product can be trusted at all.

Finally, we'll discuss a framework for weighing AI’s genuine usefulness against its real ethical costs, and for responding thoughtfully when a skeptical client or co-counsel asks: “Did you write this with AI?”

3:15 p.m.-3:30 p.m.