We render high-level services to older adults in the California Bay Area. No job is too big or too small.
Whether you need help finding a suitable tenant to rent a room in your house, would like technology lessons to facilitate joining a social network or recording television shows, hope to find part-time employment or pursue charitable endeavors, need an advocate to hear and translate complex medical advice, or would like to reconsider your estate or tax planning.
Our fixed pricing allows you to use us as you like, and without an eye on the clock.
Contact Us
San Francisco, CA
415.640.5332
Areas of Practice
Our objective is to provide you with the professional and personal services you require to make your life easier. For some clients, we become a confidant. For others, a reliable service provider. Use us as best suits you.
elder law
Our professional corporation furnishes legal services. We focus on business, tax and estate planning, as well as issues particularly affecting older adults — trusts and trustees; familial matters; philanthropy; elder abuse, conservatorship and reduced capacity; buying, selling and gifting assets, investments and family businesses.
Business & Career Consulting
Many retirees still wish to have a role in the workforce, a business enterprise, or a non-profit endeavor. Some working adults want to pivot into a new career or activity. We help you assess and achieve your objective of continuing to be a part of the working community.
Shopping
We pick up and deliver a quart of milk, or take you to the mall to shop for an upcoming family affair. We even fill your weekly shopping list.
We shop for you.
We shop with you. Transport, plus a shopping companion.
Outings
Over time, it may have become too difficult for you to attend your favorite opera or theatre, or go to the baseball park to watch your team. Or you simply fancy seeing a film, and you do not drive at night, or at all. Perhaps you do not have friends, relatives or companions who wish to accompany you to the event of your choosing.
We facilitate outings, buying tickets and providing transportation, and if desired an appropriate companion.
Your companion, for instance, for your night at the opera may be an opera lover of your generation or a high school student seeing her first production.
health care advocacy
We help you navigate the health care system. We raise your understanding of your medical condition and help you gain access to the best available treatment.
Our services complement your health care professionals. We can make appointments, transport you to and from appointments, accompany you (if you wish), take notes, ask questions, review information, and outline treatment options offered by your medical professionals.
If you wish, we can also communicate with interested family members, obtain specialist referrals, advocate for treatment coverage, file insurance papers, negotiate with insurance companies, maintain schedules of billings, and coordinate reimbursements and co-pays.
We act substantively e.g., by learning and communicating medical information, and administratively e.g., by eliminating the hassle of booking and getting to appointments.
We guide you through the byzantine system of private and government insurance to help secure the broadest coverage.
Stories4Posterity
Stories4Posterity offers a unique service. Perhaps you played for Boston University in the 1950 NCAA College Hockey Final or helped save children in Kiddy Car Airlift during the Korean War. These priceless stories could be lost, if not written down.
We memorialize your memories. A specific event. Even, a full-length biography.
Working with talented young writers who interview you, often several times, to learn the background and explore the event, we write your story.
financial literacy consulting
We teach the basics of investing (e.g., asset allocation, risk/return relationships, active vs. passive management, fees charged).
We review your bank or brokerage statements with you, if you wish.
While neither expert in corporate finance nor a licensed investment advisor, we offer general knowledge to increase your confidence in reviewing financial information and help fashion questions for you to ask your advisors.
Document Retention
Our proprietary lock-box (virtual and steel) holds documents that you may prefer safely stored under independent watch.
We put documents online for your access only. The documents may also be held in our vault.
We follow your instructions (e.g., deliver papers as requested after you pass), and serve as a safe house for critical documents.
technology training
Our clients’ range of technological understanding is wide. Some simply want to learn how to access Google, while others seek advanced Excel training. Almost all enjoy a refresher on the TV remote.
Accordingly, all of our training is one-on-one, and is generally conducted on your devices in the comfort of your own home. We return to your home as needed to reinforce our lessons. We want you to learn as well as possible to use the particular device or program.
Questions faced by Older Adults
We have the answers to frequently asked questions, whether life critical or more pedestrian, are often not clear and obvious:
- My children want me to move to assisted living, but I want to stay at home: How do I make the right decision?
- When am I financially responsible for assisted living, and when does the government cover my costs
- In my budget, which assisted living facility is superior?’
- My children have told me to stop driving: How do I know if they are right?
- Do you know of a quiet restaurant in my area?
- What are my best options if I want to work for 10 hours a week?
- How do I find reputable and dependable home health care?
- How much of my government pension is available to my spouse and children after I pass?
- Do I treat my children equally in the will even though one is needy and the other is comfortable?
Finding helpful guidance can be illusive.
We field these types of questions and can serve as a one-stop shop for finding information and discussing difficult issues.
We wish to get to know you well. We seek your trust. Life issues can be discussed between us once we attain it.
Our Team
Gary P Kaplan, the founder and CEO of Venage, has spent his career providing professional services to families and individuals.
Gary practiced law for 35 years in the fields of international tax and estate planning, most recently as a tax partner at the global law firm, Sidley Austin LLP, where he focused on families, family offices and family businesses. At his prior law firm, Gary served as co-chair of the Private Client Services group.
Gary left Sidley in 2015 to attend Harvard University full-time, studying the aging of the United States and global population. He received an MPA degree from the Harvard Kennedy School in 2016.
Gary gained substantial professional experience working with older adults in his legal capacity. Earlier, during high school and throughout college, Gary led groups of seniors on European tours and worked with the entertainment staff on cruise ships departing from the Port of Miami.
Gary served as an adjunct professor in the graduate tax program at New York University School of Law, and guest lectured on tax law at Stanford Law School and on family businesses at the University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business. He presents frequently at national and international tax and estate planning conferences.
Gary is listed in Best Lawyers in America for International Tax Law (2008 – 2015), Best Lawyers for Tax Law and Trusts and Estates (2015), International Who’s Who of Lawyers, Private Clients (2013 – 2015), and Who’s Who in the World (2018). He has also been listed in Chambers USA, Legal 500 and Super Lawyers. Gary is an AV-rated attorney by Martindale-Hubbell (1981 – 2018).
In addition to his recent master’s degree, Gary was awarded a B.A. from the University of Florida, a J.D. from the University of Michigan, and an LL.M. (Taxation) from New York University. He served as a judicial clerk for the Honorable S. K. Seymour, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Contact Gary • 415.640.5332
Rebecca Sarokin, the President of Venage, graduated from Rutgers University in 1980 with a B.A. (with honors) in Political Science. She then attended The George Washington University School of Law, where she received her J.D. (with honors) in 1984 and served as an Editor of The George Washington Law Review. She practiced corporate law in New York City for five years before taking an extended hiatus to raise four children.
She returned to the work force as an Administrative Assistant in the Larkspur Corte Madera School District, with positions at both Hall Middle School and The Cove School, where she worked tirelessly juggling the needs of students, teachers, parents, and administrators.
Rebecca’s interest in providing services to older adults evolved from her experience helping her own relatives. She was surprised by the lack of capable guidance on issues from assisted living options to home health care to insurance coverage. She has also worked on estate administration, and again was troubled by the dearth and high cost of competent advice.