Blog: News & Insights

“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...

The following Omaha.com article documents recommendations from the National Commission on the Structure of the Air Force to reduce the active-duty troop force significantly.  This orients with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s recent proposal to reduce the size of active-duty Army personnel from 520,000 to 440,000. Invariably, some active-duty personnel will continue to serve in the...

As the linked New York Times Article report documents, it appears there is bipartisan support for a bill that will provide additional funding for twenty-six new VA medical facilities. More importantly, the Bill provides for additional funding and support for veterans to see private medical care if they live in locations more than 40 miles from the nearest VA medical facility or are...

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...