Serving Our Seniors program, the American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division’s (ABA YLD) 2010-2011 national public service project. To help protect America’s senior population and provide them with peace of mind regarding future healthcare and financial decisions.

America’s quickly-growing senior population faces numerous challenges. Senior citizens are one of our most vulnerable and underrepresented populations, with many seniors living near or below the poverty line.

Many seniors face critical economic and healthcare decisions without the ability to hire legal counsel. Seniors are often unaware that help is available through the assistance of non-profit, legal service organizations. Approximately half of our senior citizens have neither a living will nor have discussed end-of-life decisions with their children. A recent study by MetLife and others concluded that elder financial abuse costs senior citizens approximately $2.6 billion annually. Seniors need legal advice and guidance in order to understand the importance of basic estate planning and to complete necessary documentation in order that their wishes will be observed at important moments in their lives. In short, a need for legal assistance for our low-income senior population remains unmet by the private bar, and legal aid organizations are simply unable to meet the demand.

Serving Our Seniors helps fulfill this need by educating seniors about their estate planning options and providing direct legal assistance through coordination with existing legal service agencies. The primary goals of the Serving Our Seniors program are

1. to educate seniors about their estate planning options; and
2. to empower them to take steps now to plan for their future and protect themselves from becoming victims of fraud and abuse. As reinforcements to the legal aid organizations currently committed to this issue, the ABA YLD and its members represent a new front in the battle to ensure that low-income seniors have basic estate plans in place throughout the nation.

The ABA YLD, along with the Chicago Bar Association Young Lawyers Section, the Chicago Bar Foundation, and Illinois Legal Aid Online, developed the Serving Our Seniors program based on a clinical project created by the Center for Disability and Elder Law. Serving Our Seniors provides a comprehensive multi-media package including educational outreach, training, and implementation materials to assist young lawyers in providing low-income seniors with legal advice regarding the creation of basic estate plans, including powers of attorney for healthcare and property, living wills, and simple wills. By working with local legal aid organizations and others operating in this field, the more than 150,000 ABA YLD members can make a substantial impact in the lives of thousands of seniors

The ABA YLD, through its Affiliates, implemented the Serving Our Seniors program in different jurisdictions during the 2010-2011 bar year in the hopes of reaching thousands of low-income seniors who were in dire need of these basic estate planning documents. Thank you for helping to serve our seniors.