This post was authored by Elena Lidrbauch, CELA, of Hickman & Lowder Co. LPA, Cleveland, Ohio. Her practice focuses on issues affecting persons with disabilities and older individuals, including special needs planning, guardianship and estate planning. In addition to her law degree, she has an M.Ed in rehabilitation counseling. Prior to practicing law, she spent [...]
This post was authored by Bryn Poland, Esq., of Mayo & Poland, PLLC, Baytown, Texas. She focuses her practice on special needs trust planning and administration, qualified settlement funds, and estate planning. She is a member of the Special Needs Alliance. Schools and day programs are suspended. Non-essential businesses are told to operate remotely. Families [...]
By Shawn Majette, Esq. Special needs planning for a loved one with mental illness is complicated. Symptoms tend to wax and wane. This makes it difficult to balance protection and security with an individual’s right to privacy and independence. The key is to design legal instruments that adjust to changing circumstances. Families can often predict [...]
By Martha C. Brown, CELA When someone is living with severe mental illness, the process of obtaining guardianship can be particularly complex. Symptoms may be intermittent, leading individuals to resist legally imposed assistance and making it difficult for a court to establish whether or not they are competent to care for themselves. The goal, of [...]
A Largely Unaddressed Epidemic By Laurie Hanson, Esq. October is Mental Illness Awareness Month, almost an oxymoron. Do you realize that more people in the U.S. have mental illness than any other disability? That a quarter of all adults experience mental illness each year? And that over 50 percent of them will go without the [...]
By Ronald S. Honberg, Director of Policy & Legal Affairs, National Alliance on Mental Illness In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in which it found that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) gives people with disabilities, including people living with serious mental illness, the right to receive services in the most integrated [...]
Mental Health and the Criminal Justice System By William King Self, Jr., CELA There are large numbers of underserved individuals with mental illness in communities across the U.S.--largely due the federal government's failure to fund community programs in the wake of deinstitutionalization. A disproportionate number of these individuals become embroiled with the criminal justice system. [...]