Total Credits: 1.0 MCLE, 1.0 Ethics, 1.0 Kansas Credit, 1.0 Kansas Ethics
As our population ages, lawyers are increasingly faced with the difficult task of assessing the capacity of clients who have diminishing capacity. Lawyers have ethical obligations both to ensure the client possesses the capacity necessary to take legal action, and to treat clients with diminished capacity as normally as possible. Lawyers are also required to take steps to enhance the client’s capacity when possible. This seminar will address an attorney’s ethical obligations when representing clients with diminishing capacity. Attendees will obtain tools for both assessing and documenting capacity (or lack thereof), and learn steps they can take to enhance a client’s capacity. The seminar will also address a lawyer’s ethical obligations when the lawyer determines the client lacks capacity, and steps the lawyer can take to protect the client if necessary. The information shared in this webinar will help attorneys both help their clients, and protect themselves against potential ethics complaints and malpractice claims.
What you will learn:
Prevalence of clients with diminishing capacity as our population ages;
Attorneys’ ethical duties to assess capacity of clients, to treat clients with diminished capacity as normally as possible, and to enhance a client’s capacity;
Use of the ABA’s Capacity Worksheet for Lawyers to both assess and document capacity;
Steps to take when a client lacks capacity
Speaker: Timothy F. McCurdy, Lashly & Baer PC, St. Louis
Moderator:
DEC 18 | Delores Berman, Attorney at Law, Chesterfield
| Danger! Ethics Trap Ahead: Representing Aging Clients With Diminished Capacity Presentation (826.2 KB) | Available after Purchase | ||
| Assessment of Older Adults With Diminished Capacity - A Handbook for Lawyers (389.7 KB) | Available after Purchase | ||
| Capacity Worksheet for Lawyers (19.1 KB) | Available after Purchase | ||
| MRPC 4-1.6 - Confidentiality of Information (350.2 KB) | Available after Purchase | ||
| MRPC 4-1.14 - Client With Diminished Capacity (253.7 KB) | Available after Purchase | ||
| Faculty Bios (15.2 KB) | Available after Purchase | ||
| MOLAP Information (215 KB) | Available after Purchase | ||
| Important Information for Attorneys Seeking Kansas Credit (58.6 KB) | Available after Purchase | ||
Tim McCurdy is Of Counsel at the firm. Tim grew up on a farm in Southwest Iowa. After obtaining his law degree from the University of Notre Dame, Tim moved to St. Louis to “watch a few Cardinals games” before returning to Iowa. Tim met his now wife and his plans quickly changed – Tim has called St. Louis home for more than twenty years.
Throughout Tim’s legal career, he has helped clients protect their rights in lawsuits throughout the country. After watching a loved one suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, Tim developed a passion for elder law. Tim’s practice now combines his more than twenty years of litigation experience with an in-depth knowledge of estate planning and probate.
Tim devotes his practice to helping families navigate disputes involving estate plans and probate administration. Tim’s trusts and estates litigation practice includes trust and will contests, the removal of fiduciaries, demands for accountings, and contested guardianships. Tim is also frequently appointed by probate judges to represent individuals facing guardianship petitions, and as a court-appointed fiduciary.
Tim also helps families protect their life savings while ensuring access to the health care they need through Medicaid and special needs planning. Tim’s elder law practice also includes helping families develop estate plans to avoid probate and to protect against future challenges to their estate plan.
Tim lives in Chesterfield with his wife, two sons, and two dogs. Outside of the office you can likely find Tim in the stands at a hockey rink or a theater cheering on his sons.
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