{"id":344,"date":"2017-10-17T22:51:12","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T22:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.wordpress.com\/?p=344"},"modified":"2018-09-27T15:27:29","modified_gmt":"2018-09-27T15:27:29","slug":"tuesdaytips-my-role-as-court-appointed-counsel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/tuesdaytips-my-role-as-court-appointed-counsel\/","title":{"rendered":"#TuesdayTips: My Role as Court Appointed Counsel"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is guardianship<\/a> and do I need it?\u00a0 Guardianship is the court process whereby an individual (usually a family member) is appointed by the court to make health care and\/or financial decisions form someone who the court has deemed incompetent and not able to make those decisions him or herself.\u00a0 It is what the court calls, \u201cthe means of last resort\u201d because the court prefers alternatives over guardianship because it is so restrictive.\u00a0 Such alternatives are powers of attorney, joint account ownership, etc.<\/p>\n

Guardianship is taken by the court very seriously.\u00a0 Why? The answer is actually simple.\u00a0 When a person is incarcerated in prison, he or she has lost their liberty, i.e., their ability to make their own decisions.\u00a0 With guardianship, even though it is a civil <\/em>matter and not criminal, the court is making a determination that a person is not competent based on medical evidence, and essentially taking that person\u2019s rights away to make medical and financial decisions from that point forward.\u00a0 The only way to get guardianship removed is to prove that the medical condition no longer exists or the person has regained the ability to make their own decisions.<\/p>\n

Because this is such an important proceeding, the legislature has felt it necessary that when a guardianship petition is filed in the court, the court shall <\/em>appoint a member of the bar (an attorney) to represent the alleged disabled person<\/em> (ADP for short) during the process.\u00a0\u00a0 That attorney is referred to as the Court-Appointed Counsel or CAC.\u00a0 The CAC is responsible for representing the ADP and asserting their wishes and instructions regardless of their physical or mental status.\u00a0 That means that if a person with end-stage Alzheimer\u2019s Disease does not believe anything is wrong and does not want a guardian, it is the CAC\u2019s job to tell the court the ADP does not want a guardian.<\/p>\n

Additionally, as part of the job of a CAC, he or she may also interview family members, review medical records, request depositions of medical professionals, and although very rare, conduct a jury trial on behalf of the ADP if competency is strongly contested.\u00a0 Often times, the ADP is either unconscious or non-communicative due to a disease or physical trauma, like a head injury.\u00a0 The court will regularly call on the CAC to opine as to the best-suited person to serve as guardian because the CAC is the court\u2019s eyes and ears during the guardianship process.<\/p>\n

Since the guardianship process can be very intense and contentious, it is best to be prepared and get your estate planning<\/a> documents in order.\u00a0 The best part about estate planning is YOU get to choose who makes those difficult medical and financial decisions.\u00a0 If a guardianship is initiated, you may not get who you want.\u00a0 For example, you might not get along with your child, and would prefer your sibling be your guardian; however, if a guardianship is initiated, your child stands in a higher priority of appointment than your sibling.\u00a0 Therefore, if the matter is contested, your sibling would have to prove that he\/she is better suited to be your guardian than your child.\u00a0 So as parting words of wisdom\u2026make sure you are prepared!\u00a0 Get your estate planning documents together so you can avoid guardianship at all costs!\u00a0 Call the attorney<\/a>s at ERA Law Group, LLC today at (410) 919-1790.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guardianship is the court process whereby an individual (usually a family member) is appointed by the court to make health care and\/or financial decisions form someone who the court has deemed incompetent and not able to make those decisions him or herself. Because this is such an important proceeding, the legislature has felt it necessary that when a guardianship petition is filed in the court, the court shall appoint a member of the bar (an attorney) to represent the alleged disabled person (ADP for short) during the process.\u00a0 The Court Appointed Counsel is responsible for representing the ADP and asserting their wishes and instructions regardless of their physical or mental status.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[412,413,414,428,416],"tags":[44,238,239,102,240,235,127,91,92,241,130,242,134,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-estate-planning","8":"category-family-law","9":"category-guardianship","10":"category-last-will-and-testaments","11":"category-medicaid-and-asset-preservation","12":"tag-attorney","13":"tag-competency","14":"tag-court-appointed-counsel","15":"tag-disability","16":"tag-doctor","17":"tag-estate-documents","18":"tag-estate-planning","19":"tag-guardian","20":"tag-guardianship","21":"tag-incompetent","22":"tag-last-will-and-testament","23":"tag-letters-of-guardianship","24":"tag-power-of-attorney","25":"tag-will","26":"entry"},"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=344"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":894,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/344\/revisions\/894"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eralawgroup.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}