A tale of two powers of attorney Financial power of attorney (The following are dramatizations.) Mr. Parker was still in reasonably good health, physically and mentally, but he remembered the decline of his own parents thirty years ago and suspected his luck would not hold out. He decided to draw up a financial power of attorney, so as to protect his assets in case he ever needed to go into a long-term care facility. Having been a lawyer himself in his younger days, Mr. Parker felt reasonably certain that he was drawing up the power of attorney correctly. However, he was not entirely certain. There might have been changes in the laws since his retirement that he didn’t know about. So he decided to consult an expert in elder law, just to be sure. And it was a good thing he did. The elder law lawyer showed him that he had failed to include the language that would allow him to make gifts of his assets. It was a good thing he still had time to amend it. Health care power of attorney Mrs. Reynolds was in excellent health, and had no reason to worry about dying any time soon. But she worried anyway, because she remembered her father’s death. It was not a good death. It was too long, too slow and too full of lingering illness. Months of operations to postpone the inevitable while he lost his faculties one by one. Months of suffering. Months of degradation. It was enough to convince her that if she was going to die as we all must, then she did not want to linger on too long after her quality of life was gone. So she wrote her living will — a statement that she did not want her life prolonged by
extraordinary measures if she were in a vegetative state or had a terminal or incurable illness. However, she had also heard horror stories about medical staff doing everything in their power to go against living wills and Do Not Resuscitate orders. She knew that her own primary care physician would respect her choices, and make sure that whoever was caring for her at the end would do the same — if he were given legal power to do it. In addition to her living will, she needed to draw up a durable health care power of attorney. Luckily, she knew a lawyer who could help her with this. Help with power of attorney in the Charlotte area Robert C. Whitt is a Charlotte attorney, servicing the areas of Mount Holly, Charlotte, Gastonia and Gaston, Mecklenburg, Lincoln Counties and surrounding communities. He focuses on wills, trusts and other aspects of elder law. If you are thinking of creating a durable power of attorney for your health care or financial decisions, call his office today.