One of the key areas of focus of Legacy Lawyers is elderly law. Few people know that this is a specialization at all, in fact. Most people have heard of corporate lawyers, litigation lawyers, personal injury lawyers, DWI lawyers Dallas, and human rights lawyers, but elderly lawyers are still somewhat of a mystery. So what are they, what do they do, and why are they needed?
What Is an Elder Law Lawyer like Legacy Lawyers?
Elder law lawyers concentrate specifically on laws affecting the elderly. They understand the unique issues facing the elderly, including aging, their health, and their mental competence. They also have a lot of knowledge on the physical and mental difficulties that many people face when they become older. Mainly, however, they know how to properly represent their legal needs.
How Can an Elder Law Firm Help?
As people age, they become frail and weak. As a result, they find it increasingly difficult to manage complex issues such as nursing home care, Social Security benefits, Medicare, tax issues, their estate, and their retirement. This is why they need legal teams to help manage them properly. These lawyers council their clients, educating them on their rights, advocating for them, and helping them plan for the future. They deal with some of the more basic aspects of the law, but also the in-depth, multi-professional knowledge of every aspect of aging.
When Is an Elderly Law Professional Needed?
Some of the situations that firms such as Legacy Lawyers work with include:
- Protecting the elderly from child abuse. Unfortunately, and as distressing as this may sound, a lot of elderly lawyers deal with situations in which their clients are abused by their children. This can be physical abuse, but mental abuse is far more common. For instance, children may put their elderly parents into care homes without there being any need for this. An elderly person may have to file a lawsuit against their children, which is highly distressing.
- Financial planning, particularly in relation to retirement planning.
- Estate planning, ensuring people know exactly where their money and possessions will go when they die.
- Grandparents’ rights, which surrounds access to grandchildren that they may not be allowed contact with.
Elderly law lawyers can also provide assistance in situations such as:
- Financial and fiduciary representation for estate planning, housing, income, taxes, gifts, financing, and other forms of financial planning.
- Helping those with marital difficulty as a result of a need for long term care, insurance, Veterans’ benefits, Medicaid, and asset protection.
- Help in planning trusts and wills, guardianship, guardianship avoidance, disability discrimination, disability claims, and grandparents’ rights.
- Providing advice on supplemental and long term health insurance.
- Medicare claims and appeals.
- Mental and physical health-related issues.
- Probate.
- Housing and home equity issues.
- Fraud recovery cases.
- Claims for or against nursing homes.
Essentially, firms like Legacy Lawyers can handle any type of issue that an elderly person is likely to face, treating them with the dignity that they deserve.
