Monterey, CA Get Advanced Health Care Directive (Living Will), POLST And Living Trust, Before It's Too Late : An Attorney With Early Onset Alzheimer's Disease Gives His View
by Richard Kuehn on 06/24/12
I want to share this story which was
written by attorney Charles Warner for the Monterey Chapter of the Alzheimer's
Association.
Plan for the Future, but Live in the
"Now"
By Charles Warner
I was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in
December of 2011. My physician was quite to the point, he told me the diagnosis
and said "no more practicing law and no more driving." Although somewhat taken
aback, and I confess a bit in denial, I appreciated his being direct and
followed his advice. I closed my law practice and began a new and different
life.
I will explain how to address the
financial (estate planning) issues. I am still working on dealing with the
disease, so that will be a progress report.
ESTATE PLANNING
My first piece of advice is:
1. Plan ahead.
Do your estate-planning now:
Estate planning is, among other things,
the preparation of wills, trusts, advanced health care directives, and
generally what you wish to have happen with all of your assets and possessions
upon your incapacity and/or death. This
is obvious, of course, but planning your estate is part of acknowledging the
disease and its progression. As a person
with Alzheimer'/s you want to do this now while you have the capacity to make
your wishes known and memorialized in legal documents.
Preparation of the necessary documents
does require using an attorney. You need an attorney that has expertise in the
preparation of the documents necessary to carry out your wishes as to the
disposition of your personal and real property. This type of attorney usually
holds themselves out as one doing Estate Planning, Estates and Trusts and/or
Wills and Trusts or descriptions similar to these.
The second step is:
2.
Find a good attorney.
How do you find an Estate Planning attorney
and how do you know whether he or she is "good"? There are at least three free
rating services available on the Internet.
On the Internet go to www.martindale.com. Martindale Hubble is
the oldest nationwide rating service for lawyers. Find lawyers in your
geographical area in "estate planning." You can review their various
qualifications if they are listed. The ratings listings are "av," "bv,"
and "cv". The ratings, as explained by Martindale Hubbell, are below:
AV Preeminent (4.5-5.0)-
AV Preeminent is a significant rating accomplishment, a testament to the fact
that a lawyer's peers rank him or her at the highest level of professional
excellence.
BV Distinguished (3.0-4.4) -
BV Distinguished is an excellent rating for a lawyer with some experience. A
widely respected mark of achievement, it differentiates a lawyer from his or
her competition.
Rated (1.0-2.9) -
The Peer Review Rated designation demonstrates that the lawyer has met the very
high criteria of General Ethical Standing.
Another, newer, national rating service,
also accessible on the Internet, is Avvo. It can be accessed at www.Avvo.com. On Avvo.com
look for "lawyers," then find the state, county and city most convenient for
you and finally look for the lawyers in Estate Planning. "Superb" is the
highest rating. They also post any discipline imposed on any lawyer by the
applicable state bar association. In California this would be the "State Bar of
California".
Last but not least, there is a
supplement to San Francisco Magazine published in the Spring of each year
entitled "Super Lawyers". This lists the top five percent of attorneys
in their fields of practice by county.
The ratings are based upon peer evaluations by other lawyers as well as
research by the Super Lawyers staff. You
can access in on the Internet at www.SuperLaywers.com. "Super Lawyers" is also published
in most other states in different periodicals.
The names of those publications will be on their website.
Some may ask:
"Do I really need a lawyer?" The answer is "Yes". Estate planning is too
complex and involves very sophisticated legal and financial planning. The
"plan" then has to be put in legal documents that will be acceptable to a court
if there is an objection (sometimes called a "contest") or questions by heirs.
Even being a lawyer, but not an estate planning lawyer, I would not have
attempted it myself.
Before you go
to your chosen lawyer discuss with your spouse what your wishes are as to the
disposition of your Estate. What assets do you have? What are they worth? What
disposition do you wish to make with regard to those assets, when and to whom?
Take all of this information in written form with you to go to the lawyer of
your choice.
Remember, this
is not an adversarial process. The lawyer is there to carry out your
wishes in legal documents.
More
important, and probably more difficult, is living life with Alzheimer's. I have
no magical answers. I can share (which I have below) the philosophy I am
"working on" now to deal with the disease.
A Realization: Living in the "Now"
An Alzheimer's diagnosis is devastating.
At least it was for me.
When I was diagnosed, I became obsessed
about what changes in my life it would inevitably cause knowing what informed
people say about the current state of knowledge as to what the future outcome
is going to be. I worried incessantly about my wife, my children and, of
course, myself.
In retrospect, spending a lot of time
worrying about myself was a mistake. It is important to plan for the future but
do not let what is going to happen in the future ruin the life you can live
now, before the disease progresses. I like of think of it as "living in
the now". Living in the now means to me that we are better off to look at what
we have left and not obsess on what we have lost. One problem with dwelling on
what is going to occur in the future is that we may turn around someday to find
the future has run out on us.
As Henry James wrote in The
Ambassadors in 1903:
"Live all you can; it's a mistake not
to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have
had your life. If you haven't had that
what have you had?
Thank you for sharing
Charles. At Family inHome Caregiving, we
deal with clients on a daily basis who have Alzheimer's disease. It is heartbreaking to see what they have to
go through. Regular readers of my blog
know that both my father and my grandmother had Alzheimer's disease when they
passed away. I am a big supporter of the Alzheimer's
Association, which has a 24-hour help line at
800-272-3900. They are also the largest private supporter of Alzheimer's
research in the United States. Please help them with their important mission if
you can by clicking on this link for
Family
inHome Caregiving fundraising site for Alzheimer's Association. To find out more about the great work that
the Banner Alzheimer's Institute is doing, click
here.
