Inside the Commission

Volume: 34 Issue: 3

2012 Guardianship Update
Read about the 29 adult guardianship measures enacted during the year in this annual Commission report, the 2012 State Adult Guardianship Legislative Update.

Health Care Decisionmaking
An updated version of Health Decisions Resources (Jan. ’13) is now available, along with new legislative analysis: State Health Care Power of Attorney Statutes: Selected Characteristics (Jan. '13) and Summary of Health Care Decision Statutes Enacted in 2012.

Utah Law Review Guardianship Issue
The Utah Law Review’s special issue with the Third National Guardianship Summit recommendations and papers is now available. Read COLA’s Erica Wood’s coauthored piece with Naomi Karp, “Choosing Home for Someone Else: Guardian Residential Decision-Making.”

COLA Moving Sale
Take advantage of our DC office’s May ‘13 relocation with the special pricing below. Act soon, as quantities are limited!

Softcover Book: Assessment of Older Adults with Diminished Capacity: A Handbook for Lawyers
This handbook offers elder law attorneys, trusts and estates lawyers, family lawyers, and general practitioners a conceptual framework and a practical system for addressing problems of client capacity, in some cases with help from a clinician. The publication represents a unique collaboration of lawyers and psychologists. It offers ideas for effective practices and makes suggestions for attorneys who wish to balance the competing goals of autonomy and protection as they confront the difficult challenges of working with older adults with diminished capacity.

  • Page length: 72
  • Publication date: 2005
  • Regular individual price: $25
  • Sale: Individual copy: $10
  • Sale: 25-copy quantity: $50
  • Sale: 66-copy quantity (case): $89

Pamphlet: Health and Financial Decisions: Legal Tools for Preserving Personal Autonomy
Information on powers of attorney, trusts, health care advance directives, living wills and other planning tools. A wonderful waiting room resource, this pamphlet outlines the options available with easy-to-understand bullet points broken down into these categories: “What is it?,” “What is it good for?,” “Creating,” and “Things to think about.” The pamphlet also includes a brief planning checklist.

  • Page length: 10
  • Publication date: 2005
  • Regular individual price: $2
  • Sale: 100-copy quantity: $25
  • Sale: 250-copy quantity: $50

To place an order, please contact us at (202) 662-8690 or at aging@americanbar.org.

Catch Up on Missed CLE Events

Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
This program provides an overview of the different legal relationship options available to a family with a child being raised by grandparents or other relatives.
   
Spousal and Domestic Partner Issues in Pensions and Retirement Income
This program covers the essential elements that you need to know about spousal and domestic partner rights in traditional defined benefit pensions, IRAs, 401ks and other defined contribution plans, and Social Security retirement benefits.

Drafting Financial Powers of Attorney: Avoiding Financial Exploitation of the Elderly
Learn smart drafting and counseling skills and how state law is changing to strengthen the effectiveness and safety of powers of attorney for finances.
   
Elder Care Mediation and Why It’s Important to Your Practice
Learn from an experienced mediator and attorney about how senior mediation can address sibling, extended family, and intergenerational disputes in elder care—and what it can mean for your practice.  

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About Bifocal

Bifocal, the Commission on Law and Aging's bi-monthly journal, provides timely, valuable legal resources pertaining to older persons, generated through the joint efforts of public and private bar groups and the aging network.

Subscriptions

The Commission distributes Bifocal for free six times a year to elder bar section and committee members, legal services providers, elder law and other private practitioners, judges, court staff, elder advocates, policymakers, law schools, elder law clinics, law libraries, and other professionals in the law and aging network.

    Subscribe to Bifocal by e-mailing your name and professional affiliation to Trisha Bullock. Include the word "SUBSCRIBE" in the subject heading.

Contributing

Bifocal invites the submission of news about your elder bar section’s activities, as well as brief articles of interest to elder law and other professionals in the aging advocacy network.

    Share news about your entity’s initiatives towards the delivery of direct legal assistance to older persons in your particular area; pro bono and reduced fee programs; community legal education programs; multi-disciplinary partnerships; and new resources that are helpful to professionals and consumers.

    Also welcome are substantive law articles on legal issues of interest to state area agencies on aging, bar association entities, private attorneys, legal services projects, law schools, and others in the law and aging network.

    Bifocal is published bi-monthly. E-mail Andrea Amato for manuscript guidelines and deadline information for upcoming issues.

Bifocal Archive

Older issues of Bifocal are archived here.