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Conservatorship
Legal/Rights§ 01 — Definition
A conservatorship is the court process that appoints someone to make decisions for an ADULT a judge has found unable to make them independently. It is the adult counterpart to guardianship, and in most states it is what a parent must pursue if they want continued legal authority after their child turns 18 — because on that birthday, parental rights end regardless of the young adult's actual capacity. Like guardianship it splits into the person and the estate. A conservatorship of the ESTATE is the expensive one: it generally applies once the adult holds more than a small threshold of assets in their own name, and it brings inventories, annual accountings, court hearings, and attorney representation for the rest of the conservatee's life. Terminology varies — some states call both roles guardianship, some use conservatorship for both — so check your own state's vocabulary before assuming the procedure.
§ 02 — Why it matters for benefits
Most families with a child on the spectrum will never need a conservatorship of the estate, because a properly funded special needs trust keeps countable assets out of the young adult's name. Knowing that in advance turns a lifetime of court accountings into a one-time filing for authority over the person, or into no filing at all.
