Who Will Raise Your Minor Children

if You Can't?

I want to ask you a question that most parents never let themselves think about.

If you and your spouse both died tonight — in a car accident on the way home, in a plane crash on vacation, in any of the sudden and terrible ways that life can end without warning — who would raise your children tomorrow morning?

Not who you hope would raise them. Not who you've talked about raising them. Who would a judge appoint to raise them if you left no written instructions?

The answer might surprise you. And it might horrify you.

Without a guardian designation, a judge decides.

Arizona law does not automatically give your children to the person you would choose. Without a legally valid guardian designation, the Superior Court appoints whoever it determines is in the best interest of your children — based on who shows up, who petitions the court, and what a judge decides after a hearing.

That could be the right person. It could also be the wrong one entirely.

Maybe there's a well-meaning relative who loves your children but whose lifestyle, values, or parenting approach is nothing like yours. Maybe there's a family member who would absolutely step forward to claim custody — someone you would never in a million years choose to raise your kids. Maybe two branches of your family would fight over your children in open court, turning their grief into a legal battle.

Without your written instructions, none of that is in your control. The moment you die without a guardian designation, the decision belongs to a judge who has never met your children, never met you, and has no idea what you would have wanted.

And there's a scenario even more immediate than that.

Let's say you and your spouse are both seriously injured in a car accident tonight. You're both rushed to the hospital. You're both unconscious.  Your children are at home with a babysitter.  Child Protective Services gets a call. Nobody has legal authority to step in and take your children.  The long-term guardian you would have chosen lives in another state and can't get there until tomorrow afternoon.

Without a short-term guardian designation naming a trusted local person — a neighbor, a nearby friend, a relative down the street — your children could be placed in CPS custody tonight. Not because anyone did anything wrong. Simply because you never wrote down who should care for them in an emergency.

That document takes us twenty minutes to prepare. It could mean the difference between your children sleeping in a friend's home tonight and sleeping in a temporary foster placement.

What a complete KEYTLaw guardian plan includes.

When you have minor children, every KEYTLaw estate plan includes five documents specifically designed to protect them:

1. Long-Term Guardian Designation This tells the Superior Court exactly who you want to raise your children if both parents are gone. This is the single most important document a parent of young children can have. It is your voice in a courtroom you'll never enter.

2. Healthcare Power of Attorney for Each Minor Child

Names the person authorized to make medical decisions for your child if you and the other parent cannot be reached. If your child is in the hospital and the surgeon needs to know whether to operate, this document gives a trusted adult the legal authority to say yes.

3. Letter to the Court: Who Should Never Raise Your Children 

If there is anyone — an estranged relative, a person with a history of poor choices, anyone at all — whom you would never want raising your children, this document tells the court exactly that in writing. It is powerful, it is legal, and it puts your wishes on the record.

4. Conservator Designation

Names the person you want to manage your minor children's financial assets if both parents are gone. Arizona law prohibits minors from managing their own assets — without this designation, the court appoints whoever it chooses.

The conversation you keep putting off.

I know why parents delay this. It means sitting down and imagining the worst thing that could happen. It means confronting your own mortality and your children's vulnerability at the same time. It is deeply uncomfortable.

But here is what I know after 46 years of practicing law in Arizona:

• The parents who had this plan in place never had to use it — and they slept better knowing it was there.
• The parents who didn't have it in place, and something happened — their families paid a price that no amount of money could fully fix.

Your children deserve to know that if the worst happened, you planned for them. That you thought about who would love them, protect them, and raise them to become who you always believed they could be. That you didn't leave that decision to a stranger in a black robe.

That is what this document is. It is a letter to your children that says: I thought about you. I planned for you. You were never an afterthought.

A complete KEYTLaw estate plan — including all five minor child protection documents, your revocable living trust, will, powers of attorney, and 27 other documents and services — is $3,497 for one person or $4,497 for a married couple.

One flat fee. Complete protection. For your children and for you.