Why I Chose Elder Law

People ask why I went into Elder Law. It's personal for me. I decided to build my practice around helping older folks and their families because of something real I lived through. It totally changed how I view the law and life in general.

A few years ago, one of my close family members got hit with an Alzheimer's diagnosis. Things started small at first. Like items turning up in weird places. Or getting dates all mixed up. That was the sign something wasn't right. But as the disease moved along, those little issues turned into huge losses. And with that came a ton of questions and responsibilities, and hard choices piled up. Alzheimer's strips away the person you knew, step by step. It leaves family members scrambling to hold things together while loving and caring for them.

We were stuck handling two sides of it, just like so many other families do. The emotional part: all that grief and shifting around. Then the everyday stuff: decisions about medical care and figuring out finances and other details. In the middle of all that practical mess, legal issues kept popping up. How could we stick to his wishes once he couldn't speak them out clearly anymore? How would we cover the care costs without draining every penny he'd saved over the years? Each one felt more tangled than the last. Answers were buried under all these confusing regulations.

Those late nights at the kitchen table stuck in my mind. We'd sift through stacks of documents. Trying to sort out decisions that seemed impossible. There was this fear hanging over us. What if we picked the wrong path. But we pushed on with determination to do right by him, since he'd always been there for us. That whole swirl of feelings, I won't ever shake it. And now I see the same thing in the families that reach out to me for help.

The hardest part for me was how tough it was to get any real legal guidance. Doctors could break down the medical facts, sure. But on the legal stuff tied to getting older, we felt pretty much on our own. The whole system acted like families could just figure out this complicated maze by themselves. When really, most people have no idea where to start. That whole ordeal never left me. It lit a fire to become the kind of lawyer my family needed back then. Someone who gets the rules and regulations, but also the real human side of it all.

So that's why I do elder law these days. It's about being right there with families in one of life's roughest stretches. Bringing some clear thinking into the confusion. A bit of calm when everything's chaotic. And holding on to dignity in spots that feel totally overwhelming.

At my firm, we work with families to come up with solutions that fit what they need, including things like estate planning, long-term care setups, Medi-Cal eligibility, conservatorship and guardianship, and protecting against elder abuse and exploitation. But honestly, those are just the tools we use. What matters most is making sure families feel supported and represented.