Trust Administration — Fuller Special Needs Law
A Trust Without Professional Administration Is Only Half a Plan
Drafting the trust is the beginning. Someone has to run it — for decades, through every change in law, benefit
policy, and your child's life. That someone matters as much as the document they're managing.
Administration by Advocacy Inc. | Michele's nonprofit – founded 2005 | Same ecosystem that drafts your plan runs it | For your child's lifetime
Most families plan the trust. Almost none plan who runs it.
Already have a Fuller Life Plan™ — and it's funded?
Your next conversation is with Advocacy, Inc. — the nonprofit that administers funded trusts.
Trust administration is not passive.
It begins when the trust is funded — and someone has to do this work, correctly, for as
long as the trust is active. For a child with a disability, that may be 40 to 60 years.
Every distribution needs to be evaluated against current SSI and Medicaid rules. Changes in law need to be monitored and applied. Annual accountings need to be prepared and filed. Care coordination needs to happen when your child's situation changes.
A trustee who gets this wrong — even once — can eliminate the benefits your child has been receiving for years. And unlike a legal error in the drafting, a distribution error may not be reversible.
This is why professional trust administration isn't optional. It's the difference between a plan that protects your child's life and a document that's waiting to fail.
What Proper Administration Requires
The trustee is responsible for all of this — for life.
- Evaluating every distribution against current SSI and Medicaid rules before
it's made - Monitoring changes in federal benefit law and applying them to the trust
- Preparing annual accountings and fiduciary records
- Coordinating with care teams when the beneficiary's situation changes
- Managing trust investments within allowable parameters
- Documenting every decision to protect against legal challenge
- Responding to Social Security Administration and Medicaid audits
- Administering the trust through
the trustee's own death, incapacity, or inability to serve
The Sibling Trustee Problem
Many families name a sibling as trustee. That sibling loves their brother or sister deeply. But love doesn't train someone in SNT compliance law. It doesn't prepare them for fiduciary liability. It doesn't protect them when they make a well-meaning distribution that triggers a benefit review. Naming a sibling as trustee asks them to carry a technical, legal, decades-long burden they were never trained for — while also grieving the loss of a parent. Professional administration exists precisely so siblings can be brothers and sisters — not accountants and fiduciaries.
Michele's Philosophy
The Plan Doesn't End at Signing. That's Where It Begins.
When Michele builds a Fuller Life Plan™, she isn't thinking about the document. She's thinking about the moment, twenty years from now, when your child needs a distribution to cover a care expense — and the trustee has to know, instantly, whether that distribution will affect their Medicaid eligibility.
She built Advocacy, Inc. in 2005 because she believed
the legal profession was failing families at exactly this moment. Firms were drafting excellent trusts and then leaving families to find someone to run them. The result was a translation gap — between what the drafting
attorney intended and what the trustee actually did, sometimes years later — that cost beneficiaries their benefits and their security.
Michele's position is simple: if you draft the plan, you're responsible for who runs it. Advocacy, Inc. exists to close that gap permanently.
"A trust document without a care plan is a guess with
legal formatting. And a care plan without professional administration is a promise nobody's keeping." — Michele P. Fuller, Esq.
Michele's Nonprofit
Advocacy, Inc.
Professional Special Needs Trust Administration
2005
Founded by Michele P. Fuller, Esq. to administer the trusts she builds
20+
Years of professional SNT administration — one of Michigan's longest-standing nonprofit trustees
0
Handoffs — the same ecosystem that
drafts the plan runs it
This is a lifetime relationship —
not a transaction.
Draft It and Run It — Under One Roof.
No other firm in our peer set offers this. Fuller Special Needs Law drafts the Fuller Life Plan™. Advocacy, Inc. administers it. Same ecosystem. Same team. For life.
How the Ecosystem Works
Michele builds the plan. Her nonprofit runs it.
From day one through your child's entire lifetime — the same people,
the same intent, the same organization.
When Michele drafts a Fuller Life Plan™, Advocacy, Inc. — the nonprofit
she founded in 2005 — is established as the professional administrator from that moment. Not handed off later. Not assigned to strangers. The attorney who designed every provision of your child's trust is the same organization responsible
for running it — once the trust is funded.
A signature is a signature. A trust must be funded before it gets managed.
Assets must be transferred into the trust before Advocacy, Inc. begins active administration.
The Fuller Circle™ maintains your plan during this period — keeping everything current, monitored, and ready — until funding triggers full administration.
This eliminates the translation gap — between what a drafting attorney intended and what a separate trustee actually does — that exists at every other firm. At Fuller Special Needs Law, that gap doesn't exist.
0
Hand-offs between signing, funding, and administration
0
Strangers making decisions about your child's trust
1
Relationship. For the life of the plan.
Same Intent,
Decades Later
Because Advocacy, Inc. is part of the same ecosystem as FUL, the intent behind every trust provision is understood — not interpreted. That matters when your child needs a distribution 30 years
from now.
One
Relationship for Life
Your family doesn't need to find a trustee, vet a bank, or manage a hand-off when you're gone. Everything — the drafting, the maintenance, the administration — flows from one relationship established when the plan is built.
Benefit
Compliance. Always.
Advocacy, Inc.'s entire purpose is SNT administration. Not estate planning. Not elder law. Not family law. Every process, every distribution decision is optimized for one thing: protecting your child's benefits.
Professional Trustee Services
What Advocacy, Inc. Does for Your Child
Advocacy, Inc.'s services activate upon trust funding. A signed trust is a legal document. A funded trust is a living plan — and that's when Advocacy, Inc. steps in as active administrator.
Advocacy, Inc. serves as the professional trustee of the Special Needs Trusts that Fuller Special Needs Law creates. As a nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to SNT administration, Advocacy, Inc. brings specialized expertise to every aspect of the trustee role — for as long as the trust is active.
- Distribution Management — Every distribution evaluated against current SSI and Medicaid rules before approval.
- Benefits Monitoring — Active monitoring of your child's benefit eligibility — any change in law or circumstance flagged and addressed.
- Annual Accountings — Fiduciary records prepared and filed annually — full transparency on every transaction, investment, and decision.
- Care Coordination Referrals — When your child's needs change, Advocacy, Inc. provides referrals to qualified care coordinators.
- Lifetime Continuity — Advocacy, Inc. doesn't retire. The organization serves as trustee, ensuring your child's plan is never disrupted.
Learn Everything About Advocacy, Inc.
Advocacy, Inc. Operates Independently — at Its Own Dedicated Website.
Advocacy, Inc. operates independently at its own website — with complete information about their trustee services, administration approach, fee structure, and how to work with them. If you already have a Fuller Life Plan™, your path to Advocacy, Inc. is already established.
Visit Advocacy, Inc. NowYour nonprofit Special Needs Trust trustee
Two Paths. Both Lead to Your Child's Protection.
If you already have a Fuller Life Plan™, Advocacy, Inc. is your next conversation.
If you don't yet have a plan, that's where we start.
- Every scenario tested while you're still here — before it's ever needed
- Your child's benefits monitored for life — any change flagged immediately
- Annual deep review so the plan grows as your child's life changes
- Once the trust is funded, Advocacy, Inc. administers it for life — the same ecosystem that built it
- One certainty you've never had before: when you're gone, the plan keeps going

