Mark W. Worthington

I have been in private practice exclusively in special needs law, elder law, and estate planning for 27 years. I have taught law school at the JD and LLM level since 2005, and recently stepped down as a full-time Professor and Director of the Graduate Program (LL.M.) in Elder Law and Estate Planning at Western New England University School of Law to return to full-time private practice as a partner at Special Needs Law Group of Massachusetts, PC (“SNLG”). I continue to teach in the LLM program at Western New England as an Adjunct Professor. Let me tell you more about Special Needs Law Group of Massachusetts ("SNLG"). Most websites, including SuperLawyers, have no category for "special needs," or more accurately, "Special Needs Advocacy and Planning," which better than any other short phrase describes what SNLG does. Special needs families comprise about 75% of SNLG clients. When we talk about Special Needs, we are generally referring to family members who have had some kind of disability or challenge since birth or perhaps from young adulthood, rather than simply aging into disabilities. Disabilities don't discriminate: SNLG's Special Needs families come in all kinds, from the wealthy to the financially struggling. The rest of the SNLG caseload is mostly complex elder law situations. A high percentage of SNLG Special Needs families also have either primary or secondary elder law issues in the mix, and just about all SNLG Special Needs families have estate planning needs – indeed, more significant estate planning needs than many other clients. The Founder of the Firm, Attorney Annette M. Hines, and I have walked the walk. Between us we have raised a 27 year old daughter who was debilitatingly ill with chronic Lyme disease for 6 years, a daughter who was severely disabled since birth who passed away at the age of 17 in 2013, and a “typical” 18 year old. View More ›