Janna S. Dutton

Elder law covers all aspects of planning, counseling, education, and advocating. We are a resource to our clients as we understand clients’ needs may extend beyond basic legal services. This area of law encompasses all aspects of planning for aging and requires a practitioner to be particularly sensitive to the legal issues impacting clients and their loved ones.

It is no longer enough to simply prepare for death through traditional estate planning methods. Death and taxes are guaranteed and require you to at least have an estate plan. However, with increasing rates of dementia and other chronic illnesses, disability planning has become equally important. A good estate plan should consider both the inevitability of death, the possibility of disability, and should make the management of your financial and personal affairs easy for your loved ones.

Guardianship is a legal process where a disabled person receives a court appointed guardian to manage her financial and legal affairs. It is often inevitable where a disabled person has lost the ability to manage their own affairs and does not have a power of attorney to manage their affairs for them. It is also an effective option for a disabled person who is being taken advantage of by an unscrupulous power of attorney, caregiver, or family member.

Caring for an aging or disabled loved one can have devastating consequences for a family, leaving spouses destitute and causing children to spend their own savings caring for ailing parents.