Elder
Rights & Resources
Legal Assistance
Legal Services
AoA’s legal programs help to ensure that older Americans
and their caregivers receive critical information in areas such
as consumer protection, public benefits, resident’s rights,
guardianship, and health and financial advance planning. The
Older Americans Act (OAA) is one of the top funding sources for
low-income senior legal services. There are approximately 1,000
OAA legal services providers nationwide, which provide over one
million hours of legal assistance per year. AoA also funds 13
senior legal hotlines and six pension counseling projects. The
following examples demonstrate the benefit of AoA’s legal
services programs:
- A 73 year-old woman was contacted by a telemarketer and invited
to join a discount buyers club. She told the company she was
not interested. However, when her checks began bouncing, she
contacted her bank and found that an electronic transfer to
the buyers club had been made. Intervention by senior legal
services led to a refund of all her money plus additional expenses.
- An elderly couple was charged nearly $11,000 for minor home
repairs that were never completed. Legal Services assisted
the couple in canceling the contract.
- A legal provider assisted an elderly woman in obtaining her
Social Security funds after they had been garnished from an
account jointly held with her son. The son had a judgment against
him and the creditor took action against the account. The elderly
woman was a resident of a nursing facility and the non-payment
of her bill might have caused her to be discharged.
- An elderly widow was being financially exploited. The legal
provider was able to cancel legal instruments that had been
forged by the abuser such as a financial power of attorney
and deed to the house.
- An 80-year old man found himself the proposed ward under
a guardianship petition. He did not believe he needed a guardian.
The legal provider defended the elderly man against imposition
of a guardianship by showing that the standards for granting
a guardianship had not been met.
- An elderly couple was threatened with eviction. The legal
provider’s attorney informed them of what was required
under law to evict tenants. The couple was relieved to know
that they did not have to move out simply because the landlord
told them they had to.
According to the OAA, states must provide “assurances
that area agencies on aging will give priority to legal assistance
related to income, health care, long-term care, nutrition, housing,
utilities, protective services, defense of guardianship, abuse,
neglect, and age discrimination.” Services are also to
be targeted to “older individuals with economic or social
needs.”
AoA legal services providers promote alternatives to guardianship.
These include medical and financial powers of attorney, living
wills, and advance directives (combination of a medical power
of attorney and a living will). AoA legal services providers
also represent seniors who wish to contest a guardianship petition
or those who desire to modify or terminate an existing guardianship
(or power of attorney).
The OAA requires each state to appoint a Legal Assistance Developer.
Similar to a state Long-term Care Ombudsman, this person is responsible
for developing and coordinating the state’s legal services
and elder rights programs. Specific duties can include:
- providing technical assistance and training to legal assistance
programs and hotlines, area agencies on aging and ombudsmen;
- developing standards to ensure that legal providers reach
targeted groups and address priority issues; and
- developing statewide reporting systems to determine the
impact of legal assistance programs.
AoA also supports national legal resources centers (listed below)
that work to improve the quality and accessibility of the legal
assistance provided to older people across the United States.
These grantees provide elder law attorneys and aging services
providers with training, fact sheets and other written materials,
case consultations, and help with service delivery issues.
Predatory lending, abuse of guardianship and powers of attorney,
scams and other forms of exploitation threaten the well being
of older Americans. Many seniors never recover financially or
emotionally from the theft of their homes or life savings. AoA’s
legal providers, developers, resource centers and hotlines protect
seniors from these threats by providing them with prevention
information; assistance in terminating exploitive contracts,
guardianships, or powers of attorney; and help seeking restitution.
They also help older persons understand their rights, exercise
choice through informed decision-making and benefit from the
support and opportunities promised by law.
To find a senior legal services provider near you, please contact
the Eldercare Locator at 1-800-677-1116 (Mon - Fri, 9 AM to 8
PM EST). Eldercare
Locator Website
Legal Resources:
AoA Aging Internet Information Note: Legal
Services for Older Adults and Elder Law
AoA-funded National Legal Resource Centers: (All
Links are Off Site)
ABA
Commission on Law and Aging (COLA) (Off
Site)
COLA provides elder law attorneys and aging network personnel with technical
assistance on substantive legal issues. The project also works to improve legal
assistance delivery systems, with a focus on collaborations among public programs
and the private bar. This past year project staff produced elder law fact sheets,
and they managed a listserv that connects over 350 elder law attorneys and other
advocates from across the country. COLA also posted the following items on its
web site: the 250-page ABA Legal Guide for Older Americans, Consumer’s
Tool Kit for Health Care Advance Planning, and Spanish and English versions of
Health and Financial Decisions: Legal Tools for Preserving Your Personal Autonomy.
The
Center for Social Gerontology (TCSG) (Off
Site)
TCSG helps states to improve their legal services delivery systems. Last year
TCSG visited five states to provide in-depth technical assistance in areas
such as targeting of legal services to seniors in the most social and economic
need, implementing statewide legal services standards and reporting/outcome
measures, and creating state elder rights coalitions. TCSG also hosted a guardianship/caregiver
mediation training conference.
AARP Foundation’s National Training Project (NTP) (Off
Site)
NTP provides legal services attorneys and aging network personnel with in-depth
training and technical assistance in areas such as Medicare, nursing home
law, advance directives, SSI, Social Security, elder abuse, coalition building,
and strategic planning. NTP also offers an intensive “Training-of-Trainer” program
to enhance the skills of field trainers in legal and social services organizations.
In FY 03, NTP conducted 29 training events with a total of 46 training days
in 22 different states, and it coordinated the National Aging and Law Conference.
Project staff also developed downloadable overheads on elder law topics for
community-based organizations, and they developed an on-line version of NTP’s
Nursing Home Law Module.
National
Senior Citizens Law Center (NSCLC) (Off Site)
NSCLC provides in-depth case consultations to senior legal services providers,
and it conducts substantive training sessions at state and national conferences.
In FY 03, NSCLC staff responded to approximately 500 requests for in-depth
case consultations, and they conducted at least 75 training sessions and related
technical assistance sessions benefiting no fewer than 2,000 participants.
NSCLC also convened governmental and community-based advocates in a New Mexico
pilot project to assess and plan improvements in the state’s elder rights
advocacy and legal assistance systems.
National
Consumer Law Center (NCLC) (Off Site)
NCLC improves legal assistance to older Americans whose finances and economic
independence are threatened by scams and abuses in the marketplace. The project
addresses the most pressing consumer problems faced by the elderly, including
challenges to sustaining home ownership, fraudulent and exploitive sales practices,
and debt management and financial decision-making. This past year NCLC provided
training, legal practice aids, and in-depth case consultations to elder law
attorneys and other advocates serving the elderly. The project also produced
and disseminated a consumer education brochure on predatory lending and translated
it into Spanish and Chinese.
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