Elder Law News

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.”...

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...

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...

Kathy Greenlee, Director of the federal Administration for Community Living– http://www.acl.gov/Index.aspx   — gave a marvelous speech last Wednesday at the  3rd World Congress on Adult Guardianship in Arlington VA. She said that “The loss of memory is not the same as the loss of self,”  that people need to be recognized for their unique selves and everyone craves the...

Over 300 people from 6 continents & 19 countries attended the 3rd World Congress on Adult Guardianship in Arlington, VA last week and spent three days discussing strategies to help people who have impaired decision-making ability. Elder law attorneys, professional guardians, professors and policy makers tackled issues such as: preserving autonomy and legal rights by use of limited...

The World Congress on Adult Guardianship will have its 3rd biennial conference in Crystal City, Virginia May 28-30. Speakers from all over the world will be presenting on the different approaches to guardianship in their countries and the legal strategies they have developed towards implementing the principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. You can...

My father Walter Ershow was a 2nd Lieutenant Bombardier on a Flying Fortress B-17 in World War II, on Crew FH-009-AV 24, in the 20th Bomb Squadron, 2nd Bomb Group of the 15th Army Air Force. They flew 23 missions and miraculously, all survived. Forty years after the War — through great effort in those pre-internet days — the members of the crew found each other and  had a great...