Your state’s pack. New issues arrive periodically on Mondays. Bookmark it. I built this for the New Mexico T&E solo who knows the Uniform Probate Code (NMSA 1978, Chapter 45) cold but still loses an afternoon a week tracking the current homestead number, the Turquoise Care (HCA) eligibility posture, whether the latest New Mexico bar ethics opinion changes how you scope an engagement, or whether a recent Court of Appeals of New Mexico decision just moved the law on capacity, undue influence, or a trustee’s duties. What’s below is what mattered in New Mexico lately — the week’s developments and the recent rulings from the bench.
For licensed attorneys. This pack is general legal information and professional commentary for practicing attorneys — it is not legal advice, does not apply to any specific matter, and creates no attorney-client relationship. Verify every authority against the cited primary source before relying on it with a client. Published by Mike Moss, a Utah-admitted attorney, as an AI-enablement information product; it is not an offer of legal services and is not a representation that the author is admitted to practice in your jurisdiction.
Three developments from the last seven days that I think actually matter to a New Mexico T&E solo. Each one has a read that lands on your practice specifically — and each one comes with the citation so you can verify the detail yourself before you use it with a client.
Per the NM Health Care Authority, effective July 1, 2024 the Human Services Department was reorganized into the New Mexico Health Care Authority (HCA), and the Medicaid managed-care program was rebranded from Centennial Care to Turquoise Care. Note the distinction the intel flags: the underlying 1115 demonstration waiver is still administratively named Centennial Care at CMS even though the member-facing program is Turquoise Care.
For a New Mexico solo, client-facing correspondence, agency names, and program references in estate-recovery and eligibility work should now read HCA / Turquoise Care — a form library or letter template still naming HSD or Centennial Care reads as stale to an informed client or caseworker. Keep the waiver-versus-program distinction straight when you cite the 1115 waiver rather than the managed-care program.
N.M. Health Care Authority · Turquoise Care · hca.nm.gov/turquoise-care
Per the New Mexico regulation, NMAC 8.200.430 was amended effective Nov. 1, 2024 to add an explicit exemption of ABLE accounts from Medicaid estate recovery and to update agency references from HSD to HCA. New Mexico recovers from the estates of recipients aged 55+ (and certain nursing-facility recipients 65+) under the Medicaid Estate Recovery Act, NMSA 27-2A-1 et seq., with a hardship-waiver provision.
If a disabled beneficiary has an ABLE account, this is a planning lever to use deliberately: assets held in a qualifying ABLE account are now expressly outside the recovery reach, so the funding choice between an ABLE account and other vehicles is also a recovery-exposure choice. Confirm the current NMAC text at funding time, and pair it with the hardship-waiver path where the residence is at issue.
N.M. Admin. Code § 8.200.430 (eff. Nov. 1, 2024) · law.cornell.edu · NMAC 8.200.430
Per the State Bar of New Mexico Ethics Advisory Committee, Formal Opinion 2024-004 (issued Sept. 24, 2024) permits responsible use of generative AI but requires independent verification of AI output, protection of client confidentiality, billing only for time actually incurred (efficiency gains pass to the client), conflicts screening, and firm-level supervision policies. The opinion is advisory only — not binding on lawyers, the disciplinary board, or any tribunal — and does not require proactive disclosure of AI use in filings.
If you use AI-assisted drafting in a New Mexico T&E practice, note the billing rule in particular: under 2024-004 the efficiency gain from AI passes to the client on time-based work, so you cannot bill the hours AI saved. Verify every machine-produced citation, treat client data entering an AI tool as a confidentiality question first, and check individual court rules for any disclosure requirement the opinion leaves open.
State Bar of N.M. · Formal Ethics Opinion 2024-004 (Sept. 24, 2024) · sbnm.org · GenAI Formal Opinion
Decisions that bind a New Mexico practitioner — New Mexico’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering New Mexico, including the U.S. Tenth Circuit — read for what actually changes how you draft, advise, and plan. Trusts and estates broadly, not Medicaid alone: wills and capacity, undue influence, fiduciary duty, trust construction, and estate recovery. One read, the holding, and the official cite.
This lane reads each new opinion from New Mexico’s appellate courts and the federal courts covering New Mexico (Tenth Circuit) before anything lands here, and reads-and-discards matters that aren’t trusts-and-estates — criminal, family, commercial/LLC fiduciary, tax, and cases where an estate or trust is only a party. For this period’s trailing window, no new verified trusts-and-estates or estate-recovery decision from those courts was identified in the sources reviewed.
Nothing to re-paper from the bench this period; controlling authority is unchanged. When the next verified T&E ruling issues, it lands here with the holding and the official cite.
Controlling authority unchanged · New Mexico appellate courts · U.S. Tenth Circuit.
This week in New Mexico for the T&E solo with New Mexico Medicaid (Turquoise Care) clients: the developments from the State Bar of New Mexico and the NM Health Care Authority that actually moved your practice this period — each one primary-source verified.
Bar and Medicaid changes land on different schedules and aren’t indexed by practice focus. Every item here was checked against its primary source, with the link, so you can verify before relying on it.