Disability and CELA Lawyer

Hello Melissa,

Here's what I've learned with my experience with DB.

When we went to the CELA she was able to provide us referals to other lawyers with expertise in filing disability claims. Our expectations on meeting with the CELA were to validate that the DPOA (durable power of attorney) and Health Care Directives we had prepared were ready to take to be notarized. (She pointed out a correction I needed prior to notarizing the DPOA). In your situation you may need your lawyer to help you draft these documents if you have not already done this. In my opinion this is one of the most important legal steps you will take. You will need the DPOA to make decisions on your loved one's behalf. You'll need this if you are stepping in to fix any financial messes that developed before the disease was recongized in your loved one. You'll need it going forward to transact business on behalf of your loved one. You'll need it when you reach the point of placing your loved one in AL or MC. You also need the Health Care Directive (or similar form in your state) so that you can see that your loved one's wishes are carried out when you need to make medical decisions on their behalf.

I'm of the belief you need at least the DPOA for you to be able to engage the disability lawyer on your loved one's behalf.

The other matters the CELA can help with is the laws governing programs you may be eligible before. The biggest of these can be your state's laws regarding Medicaid. Some states have specific rules as to how the loved ones assessts need to be handled prior to quailfying for medicaid to pick up LTC expenses. These strategies may include putting your home in to a living trust and to look out for the financial interests of the partner to the PWD.

In our specific case, our CELA charges 450 an hour, but told us this would be rolled in to her fixed price for preparing the living trust documents, which also includes a will.

@MelissaNH From my personal experience we did not need a DPOA or a CELA meeting prior to applying for SSDI. Whoever I needed to talk to just asked my husband for verbal permission to speak to me and after he gave it I was able to handle whatever was needed. You may not even need a disability attorney if you have a clearly written diagnosis of Alzheimer's in your DH's records. We only hired an attorney as DH had not completed testing at the point we applied and his application was rejected in the first round of review by SSA.

Also, sharing our experience our CELA, we were charged a flat fee for drawing up our legal docs and our first hour long consultation (I met with her by myself) was free. We also did not draw up our own DPOA. In our state DPOA's are something like 15 pages long with many, many nuanced paragraphs around what we can do on behalf of the person we are representing. We also tailored ours to allow certain actions only when the spouse was the DPOA but not if someone else had to step into that role.

There is absolutely no way I could have drawn that up on my own. In my experience as a DPOA for another family member, an insufficient DPOA can cause huge delays and in our case, cost more money as we had to have it re-written by a local attorney before banks would accept the document. Just our experience but it was certainly frustrating and delayed some financial changes needed at a critical time.

Melissa. I'm also in NH and we used David R. Craig & Associates in New Boston. I would highly recommend them…worth every penny.

others on this site have mentioned the fact that this is a diagnosis that is expedited. This has absolutely nothing to do with finances and everything to do with needing help when a disability impacts a persons ability to work. Don’t

Melissa, go ahead and apply for Social Security Disability Income (SSDI). If you apply on your own, and are approved, there is no fee. If you engage a lawyer, they will take a fee. Many, many people are approved for SSDI without the use of an attorney in the application process.

The other type of disability is disability through an employer. If he is still working, his employer may have short term and long term disability benefits available.

Your protection of assets questions are totally unrelated to SSDI. They are more related to eventually applying for Medicaid benefits. SSDI is a monthly income. Medicaid is something that helps to pay medical bills.

I used four different lawyers. The first updated our wills and POAs immediately after dementia was first mentioned. The second helped us apply for disability. (Only charged a % of back pay, but DH was approved before he was owed back pay, so we paid nothing). The third was a CELA, who met with me two different times (1/2 hour each time, first hour free so no charge!) and in the end gave me some bad advice. The fourth was a CELA who was EXPENSIVE, but worth every penny I paid him. He was in charge of helping with the financial aspect of it all and qualifying DH for Medicaid just before I placed him in memory care.

Like a PP said, SSDI is different than managing your finances. IMHO, you're fine applying for SSDI before you work with a CELA.