Recognizing and Dealing With A Client’s Diminished Capacity

The ABA Senior Lawyers Division, Commission on Law and Aging, Health Law Section General Practice, Solo and Small Firm Division, Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law, Section of Family Law and the ABA Center for Continuing Legal Education are sponsoring a teleconference and integrated visual webcast CLE entitled Diminished Capacity: How to Recognize it and What to do About it? on Dec. 3, 2009.

A description of the program is below:

How do lawyers and other non-clinicians recognize and address diminished capacity in providing professional services to individuals?   Some might argue that without training in mental disorders of aging and methods of formal capacity evaluation, you should not be making determinations about capacity at all. Yet lawyers and other professionals unavoidably face situations in which they must at least screen for capacity either in connection with representing the individual in transactional work, or in the context of a guardianship action or other litigation, or when serving as a guardian. A preliminary assessment of capacity can either be done by the seat of your pants or with some objective grounding.

This teleconference and integrated visual webcast will provide you with tools for objectively making preliminary assessments of capacity and undue influence, while balancing the competing goals of preserving autonomy and protecting vulnerable individuals.   Participants will have online access to Assessment of Older Adults With Diminished Capacity: A Handbook for Lawyers, by the ABA Commission on Law and Aging and the American Psychological Association.