Legal pre-planning gets another look at forum

One of the ongoing questions, in some form or another, has to do with a variety of legal issues facing older adults. I get the growing sense that more and more folks are ready to consider what I will call “legal pre-planning.” Our next Geezer Forum will help with that legal pre-planning.

The last time we focused on elder legal issues was three years ago this month. It’s past time to re-focus on those concerns. Next Tuesday, January 24, the Geezer Forum’s resource guest will be elder law attorney Denise Stewart. Denise’s whole practice centers on elder law.

While her primary practice is in Newport, Wash., she and her associates recently opened an office in Sandpoint. She will help us address important legal issues that impact our own lives and the lives of our families as we prepare both financially and health-wise for the future.

I see eyes glaze over (not an easy trick when those eyes are mine.) when legal matters are discussed.

But in this day and age, such matters really do matter. It is especially true when you want to 1) provide for your health care and your financial well-being; plus 2) clarify who you want to speak for you if you are unable to speak for yourself in both health and financial matters.

Denise wants you to bring questions to the Geezer Forum. Through your questions, she will explore many legal basics and some of their implications. These basics may include advance directives for health care (living wills and durable powers of attorneys for health care), powers of attorney for finances and property, plus when family trusts are appropriate.

If you have questions about essential protection found under guardianships and conservatorships, bring those also.

Do you wonder how certain legal basics might play out in particular family circumstances? It’s likely that our Geezer Forum time will only open possible conversations you can have outside of next Tuesday afternoon. But Denise may help you identify matters to discuss with family members or your own attorney.

Legal pre-planning holds significant benefit at many levels. There are also some significant challenges we need to be alert to as well. If you can name an actual issue, you may taken an important step toward resolving that issue – be it strictly a legal issue or some family complication.

When families are courageous enough to name their “issues”, they may discover they now have clearer sight to identify ways to separate and prioritize those issues into bite-size pieces. A degree of healthy control can result from organizing the issues into what are legally more important and which ones are more emotionally important.

Once the tasks are identified, various family members can take on the tasks they feel most qualified to do. That kind of “order” can go a long way toward reducing potential conflicts and get family members working together, rather than against each other.

Please consider joining us next Tuesday, January 14, at the Geezer Forum, 2:30-4:00 p.m. at the Columbia Bank Community Room. Let’s learn together about these important “Elder Law Issues.”

Paul R. Graves, M.Div., Lead Geezer-in-Training for Elder Advocates, a consulting ministry on aging issues. Contact Paul at 208-610-4971 or email him at elderadvocates@nctv.com.