More Effective Advance Care Planning and Advance Directives

The ABA Commission on Law and Aging and partner organizations have developed an Advance Care Planning set of guiding principles and a practical checklist for lawyers aimed at improving the advance care planning process and the drafting of advance directives. Advance Care Planning research tells us that most health care advance directives are neither accessible nor helpful in clinical decision-making for patients nearing the end of life.

This program and the principles and checklist that will be presented are the result of an innovative research initiative undertaken by the ABA Commission with partner organizations UCSF/UC Hastings Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy; the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center; and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine; with support from the John A. Hartford Foundation and the Borchard Foundation Center on Law and Aging. The project brought together health care decision-making experts from the Bar and the field of medicine to identify ways that the legal counseling and the drafting of advance directives can be brought into better alignment with the clinical realities of end-of-life decision-making and, as a result, become more effective in ensuring that clients’ wishes are known and honored in clinical settings. 

Faculty will explain the principles that should guide advance care planning counseling techniques and walk you through a step-by-step checklist that embodies recommended practices. The program will enable you to provide more meaningful guidance regarding the advance directive forms or templates currently used in your practice. Our panel will also identify a variety of tools and other resources that can be provided to clients to assist in their planning for future health care decisions and talking with their family, friends, and health care providers.