What Is ?Elder Law?? Do I Need an Elder Law Attorney? | Elder Law ...

OCTOBER 15, 2012 VOLUME 19 NUMBER 38
At Fleming & Curti, PLC, we practice ?elder law.? But what does that mean? Are all our attorneys elderly? (No) Are they all senior members of a religious group? (No) Are all our clients above a certain age? (No) Then what is the significance of the term ?elder law??

Sometimes we rebel against the term. When asked what kind of law we practice, we might say something like: ?We limit our practice to guardianship, conservatorship, estate planning, probate, long-term care planning, trust administration and special needs planning.? The problem with that formulation is obvious: it seems oxymoronic to ?limit? your practice to seven items ? and to be complete we probably should thrown in two or three others.

No one practicing ?elder law? likes the term. It is not descriptive of our clients: a significant number of the cases we handle involve children ? often even toddlers ? and many of our clients are middle-aged children of aging parents. It is not easy for clients to relate to: when asked what constitutes an elder or senior citizen, most of our clients immediately think of someone just a few years older than themselves.

All elder law attorneys think from time to time about better descriptions they might use. The problem with that effort, though, is that no one has come up with a better label, or even one that comes closer to describing what we do.

What do we (elder law attorneys) do? For that matter, what do we (Fleming & Curti, PLC) do? Here?s a sampling:

Guardianship and Conservatorship. In Arizona, a guardian is a court-appointed person who makes medical and placement decisions for an incapacitated adult or a minor child whose parents are not available to handle those duties. A conservator fills a similar role, but handles money; a conservator can be appointed for an adult who is unable to manage his or her finances because of a disability, or for a child. Note that there is no requirement of a finding that the child can not handle money, or that the child?s parents can not do so; a child is legally incapacitated no matter how capable he or she might be, and the child?s parents do not have any automatic right to make financial decisions for him or her (as they do for medical and placement decisions). So that means guardianship and conservatorship may be necessary for the very young, and for adults who are incapacitated ? whether by dementia or by other illness or condition.

Getting a guardian and/or conservator appointed is only part of the battle. Once appointed, a guardian or conservator is answerable to the courts, and must file annual reports and accounts. It is an intensive exposure to the legal system, and very difficult to navigate without the help of counsel. Like us.

Estate Planning. We write wills, trusts, powers of attorney and other estate planning documents. Most of our clients in this area are older than, say, their mid-50s ? but not because that?s who needs estate planning. Younger people (including the parents of minor children, anyone who drives a vehicle, anyone who has ever seen a doctor) also need to complete estate planning. They just tend not to until they reach an age where they see the value. As one of our clients wisely said: ?the two kinds of people you hate to deal with are doctors and lawyers ? and when you get older you spend a lot of time with both.?

Older people may have more complicated estate plans. They may have larger tax concerns (because they have had time to acquire more assets). They may have others (children with disabilities, spouses with failing abilities, long-time friends they have helped over the years) who rely on them and need their consideration. They also may feel somewhat more mortal. And so they tend to be the ones who get to the lawyer?s office ? and hence the estate planning business seems to be (but should not be) an issue for elders.

Long-term Care Planning. Nursing home costs will likely bankrupt most families if someone has to spend more than a few months in a care facility. Planning for how to deal with that should start early, and include (among other things) long-term care insurance. But most people don?t plan for possible institutionalization. Instead, they bravely insist that ?I am never going into the nursing home.? Many of them turn out to be wrong, but most of those won?t know how wrong they were until they are, well, elderly. Most (but certainly not all) of the residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities are elderly. So the practice of preparing people for that eventuality, and of helping spouses and children get ready to place a loved one in such a facility, has come to be thought of as ?elder? law.

Trust Administration. While creating and funding a living trust may avoid the probate process, that is not the same as saying that your (successor) trustee will not need any contact with lawyers or accountants. In fact, your trustee will probably need both. But even your trustee will probably be elderly by the time you die. Odds are that you will be, too. So this tends to look like a legal problem involving the elderly, though plenty of trustees are younger and a lot of people sign trusts when they are younger, too.

Probate. Some people don?t plan for probate avoidance, either because they didn?t get around to it or because they consciously engaged in a cost/benefit analysis and decided it wasn?t worth the expense (to them, at the time). Whatever. Probate administration, like trust administration, is an area of practice that often ? but not always ? involves people who are elderly.

Special Needs Trusts and Planning. This one has the most tenuous link to the elderly. The beneficiaries of most special needs trusts are young ? often infants or toddlers. Even the parents of special needs trust beneficiaries may be young ? perhaps even in their 20s. So how does this become an ?elder law? issue? It?s simple: the government programs and rules that are involved in special needs trust planning, establishment and administration are the same programs and rules involved in long-term care for the elderly. But saying ?I?m an elder and special needs lawyer? just doesn?t trip lightly off the tongue, and it begins to sound like we are trying to describe our own circumstances, not those of the people we strive to help.

So that?s what we do as ?elder law? attorneys. Is that all we do? No, we also have a few other areas we might work in ? like guardianship of minors, advance directive preparation and interpretation, or recovering from abuse, neglect or exploitation. But that?s the bulk of our work.

Feel free to come up with a better, shorter, more user-friendly term. We?ve been working on it for years, but we are confident that there is a good answer out there. Somewhere.

Source: http://issues.flemingandcurti.com/2012/10/14/what-is-elder-law-do-i-need-an-elder-law-attorney/

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