Author: Linda Ershow-Levenberg

It’s possible that a few years from now, you’ll need to help someone apply for Medicaid to pay for assisted living, nursing home or home care. These applications are daunting. You can’t apply until the non-exempt assets are down to $2,000 or $4,000 (plus a protected amount for a community spouse), but the biggest challenge is dealing with the “5-year lookback.”...

There is a veterinarian whose practice is next door to my office. He came over today to tell me that he is looking for a family to adopt a  3 year old Tennessee Tree Walker Hound. The dog’s name is Flint, and he reportedly lived for three years with a family who had a child with special needs. According to Dr. Orange, Flint is housebroken and well-adjusted, and has a very mild...

Veterans Compensation pays a monthly stipend based on the severity of a service-connected disability. The recipient may not be totally disabled or unemployable. Social Security Disability insurance, on the other hand, is available to a person who is not engaged in Substantial Gainful Activity (“SGA”) and cannot perform SGA due to a severe, medically-determinable impairment that has...

Most aging clients I meet with say that if they ever need to have someone take care of them, they’d prefer to stay at home as long as possible. For people in New Jersey, this wish poses major challenges. While there are scores of excellent companies that provide at-home companionship and certified home health aide services, there is very limited governmental support for those without...

“Mary” was a vivacious young woman who lived in the family homestead in “The Port” in Elizabeth, east of the Turnpike. She was raised by her mother in the house they shared with several of Mary’s unmarried aunts and uncles. They all retired when the SInger Sewing machine factory closed down. Mary had worked there as well after she graduated high school. She had no...

Sometimes a guardianship must be put in place when a young person reaches adulthood and has severe disabilities that impede their capability to manage their financial or personal affairs. Sometimes a capable adult who never signed any Power of Attorney suffers a severe and traumatic brain injury, and a guardianship is urgently needed to ensure financial protection or arrange for necessary...

The NJ Guardianship statutes and court rules give examples of areas of decision-making that can be excluded from the guardian’s control and reserved to the person under guardianship. A case called Matter of M.R., 135 N.J. 155, 638 A.2d 1274 (NJ 1994) discussed the idea that a person under guardianship may still have the capacity to make certain decisions such as with whom she wanted to...

When a petition for guardianship is filed in NJ, the examining physicians, the court-appointed attorney for the alleged incapacitated person, and the Court are required to consider whether the person lacks the capacity “to care for himself” and to “manage his affairs” in some or all domains. See N.J.S.A. 3B:12-24.1b (the statute) and N.J. R. 4:86-2(b) and 4:86-4(b)...

Some years ago I was asked to help out “Mario”, who was about 80 and recently widowed after a long and happy marriage. He had Alzheimer’s Disease and was becoming disorganized. He had no kids, and his kin felt they could not step up and take on the job of assisting him. “Mario” was still living on his own in an apartment in Linden which was neat and tidy, and...

Most people have heard of “advance directives,” “living wills” or “the 5 wishes.” The law allows us to write down and sign our instructions concerning life support medical treatment that we do or do not want should we ever become “incompetent.” We can also appoint someone as our proxy decision-maker to carry out our wishes. These deal only with...