The process in my office usually looks like this:

1. Call the office to make the appointment for an initial visit.  At that time, I’ll get a little information from you and then send you out a Client Information Form that will help you put together some information.  It’s not a test, so if you don’t get the whole thing filled out don’t worry.

How to avoid a hold up at this step: Don’t put off calling just because you haven’t made decisions about your plan.

2. The initial meeting. This is where we talk about your family, your goals, your current plan, and yes, your budget, so that we can come up with the best plan for you and your family.  We’ll go over things like what assets you own, how they are held,  who you want to inherit them. We’ll also talk about the people you want making health care decisions for you and who you want to name as guardian of your minor children.

It’s ok if you haven’t finalized these things before the meeting. Talking about the various roles and what’s involved can help you narrow down your list.

How to avoid a hold up at this step:  Don’t postpone the meeting because you haven’t filled out the entire intake form.  Do talk to your spouse or family so that you can make some preliminary decisions before the meeting.

3. You Decide. After the initial meeting, I generally send out a letter that lays out what we talked about, the preliminary plan, and any decisions that still need to be made.  I also let you know what the final fee is (which we would have talked about at the meeting, also.)  At this point, you can make changes to the plan and send in the signed agreement, along with part of the fee.

How to avoid a hold up at this step: Call the office if you have questions about the letter, and send it back in a timely fashion.

4. Review of Drafts. I will generally send out drafts to my clients so they can make sure the appropriate people are named as their agents, and that the distributions in their Wills and Trusts are the way the want them.  Changes can be made at this point if necessary.

How to avoid a hold up at this step: Open the envelope and review the drafts. Call the office if you have questions and don’t get bogged down by the “legalese.” I go over the documents in details before you sign them.

5.  The Signing Meeting. At the signing meeting, you’ll review the documents one more time, I’ll go over in detail the legal terminology and answer any questions you have.  Once everything has been reviewed, I call in the witnesses.  They are there to make sure that you are signing without any undue influence, and that you are over 18 and of sound mind.  They will watch you sign the documents, and then they sign the documents.

Then, I give you your original documents and a set of copies and I keep a set of copies. The remainder of the fee is payable at that point.

The whole process from start to finish can be a couple of days (for someone with an urgent health situation who can’t wait), a couple of weeks (for someone who is traveling soon and has no plan in place) or a couple of months (for someone with more complex decisions to make, or advisors to consult.)  Usually, it’s about 4 to 6 weeks total, after the first appointment.

As you can see, the process isn’t that scary, and there’s a lot about it that you control. Including picking up the phone and calling.

Here I am at the top: 

and here he and I are back at the bottom, 9.2 miles and 11 hours later:

We first climbed it together in 1999.  Eleven years later our pace was a little slower but we made it. And it was because of our commitment to staying physically active and healthy that we were able to. And we saw a good number of people my dad’s age or older who were hiking, as well.

When my clients ask me the best way to avoid paying for nursing home care in the future, I always add “Stay healthy, be active, don’t fall.”  And it’s true. Whether you are sitting in a chair doing yoga, walking around the block, training for a 5K run or a marathon, or hiking up a mountain, staying (or becoming) physically active is one of the best ways to keep happy and healthy as you grow old.  And it’s a great way to stay connected with your kids and younger relatives.

Very often the people in my office (or reading my website) are under some type of stress. Either they are overwhelmed caring for an aging parent or ailing loved one, they are nervous about planning for their future and thinking about their death or disability, or someone close to them has passed away. I will often talk to my clients or their children about how they handle stress, because not dealing with it can hinder the legal process and strain family relationships.

Why would your lawyer care how you deal with stress?  Someone who is overly stressed may not reach out for help because they are stuck in a place of thinking they have to “do it all.” They may rush to make decisions they later regret, just to get it over with. Or they will not follow through with the process because they don’t want to think about it. The legal process can be complicated by a client who is avoiding dealing with things because they feel overwhelmed.

Their stress may start affecting their job or family life, which puts the needed legal work on the back burner.  And often times delaying a plan can lead to more costly work in the future. I would much rather help my clients put a plan in place early on in the process when it is generally most cost effective and less stressful, than deal with a client under pressure later.

Some ways to deal with stress are:

• Making sure you get outside for a walk every day,
• Eating healthy foods and drinking enough water,
• Scheduling in breaks, even if you don’t think you need them,
• Talking to a friend or counselor,
• Yoga or meditation,
• Swimming (one of my favorite ways to reduce stress),
• Knitting or other crafting,
• Writing in a journal.

Legal work is a team effort, and the team functions best when everyone is less stressed.

While we know that we mean well when we want to make sure our parents have their estate plan in place, I think that what our parents hear is “Hey, you are going to die soon and I want to make sure I get some stuff. So, can you go spend money on a lawyer to make my life easier?”  Just as when we were young and our parents didn’t want us to drive late at night or take us to the mall we heard “I am trying to make your life miserable and insure that you are the least popular person is school with the most unfashionable clothes.”

There are a few ways to bring up the issue of your parents estate plan.

1. Don’t Make It About Stuff. Yes, we are all going to die and someone is going to have to figure out what to do with our stuff. However, talking about planning for incapacity can be a better way to approach the conversation. Bringing up the topic by talking about a relative with health issues, or a newspaper article about someone who didn’t have a plan in place for disability and how that affected them and their families can be a good introduction to asking your parents about whether they have health care proxies and powers of attorney in place so someone can help out if they need it.

You might not even have to mention the Will. If you can get your parents to make an appointment with an attorney so they can do their health care proxies and powers of attorney, the lawyer will talk to them about their Will and other estate planning documents.  And having this topic brought up by the professional rather than their children can make them much more open to talking about it.

2. Get Your Papers In Order. If you are going to bring up your parents estate plan, you’d better be sure to have your own affairs in order (or at least have an appointment scheduled with your attorney.)  This can also help allay some of the fears they might have about the process.  You can talk to them about what it was like for you, and how you felt having to consider what would happen to you and your family in the event of your disability or death.

3. Offer Assistance. Your parents may have been putting the process off because they simply don’t know where to start.  If they are open to it, you could get some recommendations for attorneys, call some of them to get a feel for their style and availability and even offer to drive your parents to the appointment if they are uncomfortable driving.  Just bring a book, since you will be sitting in the waiting room. And keep in mind that even if you are paying for the attorney, this does not override the attorney/client confidentiality.

4. Bring It Up Early and Often. These things don’t have to be a one time, big deal conversation, especially since those can be intimidating.  You can mention over lunch one day that you feel so much better having put your estate plan into place. Then you could forward a news article about the topic to your parents. You could mention how difficult things were for your in-laws when their parents passed away because they didnt’ have an updated Will and the family was fighting over things.  You don’t want to be a broken record, but there are plenty of times to casually bring up the issue. When they are ready, they will let you know.

5. Involve One of Their Peers. It may be that your parents are simply uncomfortable talking about these issues with their children. They may have certain ideas about the parent/child role and not want it subverted.  In this case, you could always ask an aunt or uncle to bring it up, or maybe one of their close friends. Again, stress that you want to make sure they have a plan in place for who should take care of health care decisions and paying their bills in the event they are unable.

6. Find Out About The Alternatives. It may be that your parents simply choose not to put a plan in place. And that is their right. However, you can still visit an attorney to find out what the ramifications are to this.  The attorney can explain the guardianship process that would need to be pursued so that someone could make medical decisions, the conservatorship process to allow someone to handle their finances and property if they become unable, how property is distributed if someone dies without a Will, the people generally appointed by the Court to fulfill these roles and the costs.  You can share this information with your parents if you like, so they at least understand the consequences of choosing not to act, and you’ll be as prepared as you can be.

You can also give your parents this article I wrote called “So, Your Kids Want You To See An Elder Law Attorney.”

The American Bar Association explains why in their pamphlet Why Am I Left in the Waiting Room?, which outlines the “Four C’s” of elder law ethics that lawyers are required to follow:

Client Identification: The most important thing for an attorney to convey in the initial meeting is “who is my client.” This needs to be made clear to everyone in the room. The “family unit” or “the situation” cannot be my client.  If you bring your mother in to have her Will drafted, your mother is my client. Even if you are paying the bill. Even if you made the appointment. Even if she tells me in our meeting that she wants to disinherit you.

Conflicts of Interest: Lawyers must avoid conflicts of interest.  Many times, the parents and the children will have different interests in the outcome of a situation.  It may be in the best interest of the child for the parents to gift them large sums of money, or a house. However, it may not be in the best interest of the parents to make these large gifts when they may need the resource to provide for their own care and standard of living.  An attorney could not represent the children and the parents in this situation.

Confidentiality: A lawyer must keep information and communications between her clients and her confidential.  I cannot share any information with my client’s family unless they give me specific permission to.  Sometimes, an adult child will call me to find out where things are in the process, or question why their parent made a certain decision.  I cannot share this information with the child, and they would be better served to ask their parent directly, or, in some cases, mind their own business.

Competency: Many times a child will want to accompany their parent or parents into the meeting because they think their parent won’t understand what is going on, or they are afraid their parent will leave out important information.   However, assessing the client’s capacity if part of getting to know the client.  By meeting privately with the client, I am able to find out if they can explain the problem or express what they need. If someone else is in the room answering the questions, I have a hard time determining if my client understands.

There may be times where I meet with my client privately, and then they ask if their child can come back in the room so that I can explain to them what the plan is. This is fine, since it is done after the meeting with my client and it is with my client’s permission.

These rules make a lot of sense if you think about it – a Will or Power of Attorney can be challenged if the client was under undue influence when it was signed. This might be of special concern to families where one child is the primary caregiver of the parent, and the primary beneficiary under their Will.  By staying in the waiting room, you are less likely to be accused of exerting undue influence over your parent.

So, feel free to call and make the appointment for your parent, and even drive them here. Just don’t feel slighted when I ask you to wait in the waiting room.  I promise there will be interesting things to read.

See also: PA Elder, Estate & Fiduciary Blog.

Doctors sometimes recommend that you bring a companion to an appointment where a second set of ears may be useful.  Sometimes my clients find it helpful to bring a second set of ears to our meetings together, and will invite a friend, family member or other trusted advisor to sit in.  This usually takes place in the context of explanations of the Medicaid process, when the client is having difficulty making certain decisions and wants some guidance from me and her friend, or when the client simply feels overwhelmed in their situation and wants someone to come along for moral support.

A companion at the meeting can help with:

1. Talking to you before the meeting about what you want to remember to ask your attorney, and writing those things down,

2. Going over materials with you to spot any questions you might have, or things you may have overlooked,

3. Taking notes during the meeting so that you can just talk and listen,

4. Reminding you of things you wanted to mention or questions you wanted to ask.

Times when you may want to ask your helper to step out of the room (or your attorney may ask them to):

1. If you are discussing privileged information such as strategy for a trial,

2. If your attorney thinks that a family member may question your helper’s influence, they may ask that person to wait in the waiting room for a bit,

3. If you ever feel uncomfortable having them there for a particular part of the discussion.

It’s not right for every person or every meeting, but having a trusted friend or family member at a meeting can often be very helpful and productive.

April is Health Care Decisions month, the month when you are supposed to sign health care proxies and talk to your family about your “end of life wishes.” I know many people will sign health care proxies, but I wonder how many will take that next step to communicate their wishes to their families, or to even consider what their wishes are.

A health care proxy is invoked when your doctors have determined that you are unable to make or communicate health care decisions for yourself, and someone needs to speak on your behalf.  Maybe you’ve been in a car accident and are unconscious, or have had a stroke and cannot move or speak, or have advanced dementia and cannot understand the situation enough to know what decision to make.

Stop for a moment and imagine this situation.

Then imagine that something needs to be done -  a blood transfusion after an accident, a feeding tube inserted after a stroke, CPR because of a heart attack suffered when you have advanced dementia.

Do you know what you would want done? Does your family? Do your doctors?

The decisions aren’t the same for everyone and there is no “right answer.” It depends on your age, health conditions, religious beliefs, family experiences, and more.  What you would have wanted at one time, may change as your health changes.

When your doctor turns to your health care proxy and says “what should we do?” you want them to be able to know, with confidence, what you would want.  Because they are not making their own decision, they are communicating your decision. And they can’t do this if you haven’t told them what you wanted. It’s a hard enough position to be in already, don’t make it harder by putting the burden on them to decide.

Help your health care proxy by thinking about your wishes, by writing those wishes down (this often helps us learn what we are thinking) and then sharing those wishes with your family or whomever you are appointing to serve in this role.

Share them early and often. I do. I gave everyone in my family a copy of the Five Wishes Living Will for Christmas one year. (The perfect stocking stuffer!) I update mine every so often, sometimes prompted by media stories, and revisit it often to see if there is anything I want to add or change. And I make sure the people I’ve appointed to act on my behalf know what I want and where to find the document so that in a moment of crisis, they can be reassured that they are making my decision, not theirs.

It’s not morbid, it’s kind.

And very often my older clients think they need to have “the talk” with their adult kids about their estate plan, or their wishes for medical care, or who gets what heirloom.  They try to figure out what the “right time” will be to bring up these subjects and don’t want to ruin a holiday dinner by talking about it or can never find the time to get everyone together.

What I try to stress to my clients is that there is no perfect time, and there isn’t just one conversation.  You can bring something up while standing next to each other washing dishes, “I just wanted to let you know that our imporant papers are in the lock box in the hall closet, just in case you ever need them.”  Or if a relative is sick, or you see a news story about end of life care, you can say “Just so you know, I’ve appointed Susan to make decisions for me if something happens. I’ve told her what my wishes are, but I want to let you know, too…” Or if you mainly communicate by email or Skype, bring it up that way.

For some people, it may make sense to talk about it more formally, especially if they are having trouble deciding who to appoint, or want to get their children’s input on what to do with the family home after the parents have passes away (does anyone want to buy it? can they all agree to sell it?). In that case, you can let people know what the meeting will be about, have an agenda, and remember that not everything has to be resolved at the first meeting.  You could even do what one of my clients did, he invited his kids over for a pizza party after he signed all of his estate planning documents to review with them.

The important thing is that you talk about.  Even if you need to bribe your children with pizza.

As I went back up and told her the news – she’d need to call someone to set up the sump pumps and then call the oil company to get the furnace back up and running after the water was cleared, and she’d probably not have heat until the next day – she shook her head. “I was afraid this would happen,” she said.

It made me wonder, well, if you were afraid it would happen, why didn’t you make sure the sump-pump was set up on Friday when the 4 days of heavy rain were forecast? Why didn’t you call me to check on them earlier?  Why didn’t you do something other than just be afraid it would happen? Fear doesn’t keep the basement dry, action does.

What are you afraid might happen? That something might happen to you and there would be no one named to take care of your children? That you might get sick and no one would know what you wishes about medical care are? That you might not have enough money to pay your bills next month? That the rattling noise in your car might be something serious? That the nagging cough might be something more than just the remains of a cold?

Are you taking any action on these issues? Even a baby step like looking at your budget or creating one. Or writing down your wishes for end of life care, even if you aren’t quite sure yet who you’d want to appoint to make those decisions for you. Maybe making a list of all the possible guardians for your children, and narrowing it down later. Or calling your doctor. Or your mechanic.

Fear won’t keep the basement dry. It won’t protect you, or your children or your car or your bank account or your health. Only you can do that by taking some action, no matter how small, today.