The Elder Law Coach

Ep 58 Elder Law Myths, Debunked

• Todd Whatley

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We lay out the biggest myths about elder law and show how a compassionate, human-centered practice can protect families from crushing care costs while giving attorneys more control and purpose. From Medicaid and VA benefits to avoiding guardianship and probate, we share practical paths to pivot and thrive.

• elder law as more than simple estate planning
• drafting with long-term care and incapacity in mind
• Medicaid eligibility and ethical asset protection
• VA benefits for veterans and surviving spouses
• interpreting long-term care insurance contracts
• avoiding guardianship and probate through better documents
• why the work is technical but learnable with coaching
• transferable skills from family law and litigation
• choosing litigation or a counseling-focused practice
• building a client-centered schedule with real impact

Go to theelderlawcoach.com, sign up, let’s talk


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SPEAKER_00:

You're tuning in to the Elder Law Coach Podcast, the definitive resource for attorneys delving into the world of elder law. With your host, Todd Watley, a certified Elder Law attorney, past president of the National Elder Law Foundation, and renowned coach with a quarter century of specialized experience. Whether you're an established attorney looking to refine your expertise, or an emerging lawyer seeking a successful foray into elder law, this is your masterclass. Now, let's get started with the luminary in the field. Here's Todd Watley.

SPEAKER_01:

Hey there, I'm Todd Watley, certified elder law attorney and the elder law coach. I want to talk today about one of the funny things that I hear when I go to bar meetings or um, particularly people who have thought about getting into coaching and they're not not sure about it. There's quite a few myths about elder law that are just absolute absolutely not true. Okay. And so today's show is busting myths about elder law. Um many attorneys dismiss what we do when when they hear elder law, they think, oh, you just work with poor old people. Well, no, we don't. We we do spend a lot of time working with older people, but they are particularly not poor, and they absolutely need us to help keep what they have. Okay. Um, people think it's very technical, that it's difficult to do elder law, and I'm not going to say it's easy, but I think once you've done it a few times and once the rules kind of just make sense to you, it becomes a much um, much more understandable thing. And it will take you a while if you do it by yourself. Um, and yes, this is a pitch for coaching, but I will tell you that having someone there that can explain the rules to you, walk you through this fact pattern with these rules, once you do it a few times, you're like, oh, okay, this makes sense. I did a coaching call this morning, and the guy said, you know, first time I read this, it's like, this makes absolutely no sense. But having now done it, I'm not confused anymore. I was like, great, we're we're on our way there. And so it is confusing, it is technical, but you can figure this out pretty easily. Okay. And sometimes people think it's boring. It is absolutely not boring. I have a new associate who just started, and her first two weeks, she's like, man, this is so interesting. There's just all kinds of different situations that are occurring. And yeah, this is very interesting and something that I'm not going to get bored with. So, all right. So, just as an introductory there, this is, I think, one of the best jobs in the world and one that I would love to help you get into doing. So, myth number one, elder law is just simple estate planning. As an elder law attorney, you will do a lot of estate planning because people come to you early, which we encourage and come in to see us and have us do their estate plans. And our estate plans are going to be substantially different than typically someone in their their uh 40s or 50s. Okay. We typically work with people who are older, and one of the things that's very heavy here that you need to think about is this is probably going to be this client's last estate plan. All right. And that when I tell my associates that, they're like, oh, this is, you know, if you're 40 and you do it and you don't like it or it's messed up, you can you can always fix it. Okay. But sometimes this is our last chance at this. That this person is losing capacity, and what they do today is going to have to be right, and it's what's going to be in effect when this person fully becomes incapacitated and at their death. And so it's it's very serious stuff, but it's it's not just estate planning. Our documents need to take into account what is about to occur. You know, these people are probably about to go into long-term care. They are about to experience very expensive care and accommodations that we need to help them deal with. And so you need to understand Medicaid planning to do these documents. Sometimes people come in with a substantial amount of money, not super big money, but decent money, you know, one, two, three million dollars. And they want to protect this in light of needing nursing home care because they can see$10,000,$12,000,$15,000 a month is going to absolutely devastate their, you know,$2 or$3 million nest egg. And so they need our help to do some things to help protect that. And once you get into the two to three million dollar range, you really do need to use some tools that will help them. Um, VA benefits, okay? A lot of veterans out there. A lot of these guys are getting older and they are needing help. And sometimes it's the spouse of a veteran that will finally come to us and say, hey, I need some help. And being able to know the VA rules and be able to explain those rules to a veteran or their spouse to help them get the care that they need. And it's tax-free money. I mean, it's great money if you can get it, if they qualify for it. And so being able to do their estate plan in light of the VA benefits is also very important. Um, people want a second opinion on their long-term care contracts. And as you get into Elder Law and as you do Medicaid and start looking at some of these, you'll get very first-hand knowledge of how long-term care contracts work. And if you happen to be a contract lawyer, this will be very helpful to help you understand this contract, how it works, and how it's going to play into their future. And particularly if they are needing the care, sometimes they need our assistance to force the insurance company to pay. Imagine that. And then in many states, we don't want to do guardianship and we don't want to do probate. And doing documents today while this person still has capacity to know exactly what they're doing and to put that in writing and help them avoid court later on, guardianship and probate, is extremely satisfying. And when people see their friends having to go to court and their kids are fighting in court, or it's a year until they can get their stuff going through probate, they will come back to us and I've had clients come back to us and say, Thank you so much. Thank you, that we did not have to go through that. So, yes, it's estate planning, but it's with a purpose, and you see your plan carried out very quickly. All right. As one of the graders of the Sila exam, I get this all the time. They're like, Todd, it's just too difficult. It's too technical. The test is too hard, elder law is just too difficult. And like I said at the beginning, I'm not going to lie, it's not easy. It is challenging, but once you get it, once you can understand how the rules work and how you can help a family who is just devastated, they are about to lose everything that they have because their dad or their mom or their spouse needs nursing home care. Being able to step in and say, We got this, okay? Don't worry about it. The rules are here to protect you, and I'm going to be able to protect almost everything that you have. You can't beat that job, okay? And yes, it is technical. And that's what keeps a lot of other attorneys from doing it. And it's what keeps families from doing this on their own. All right. If you're worried about AI and downloaded documents and things like that, you should be worried. But this is one of those areas that you'll you almost cannot figure out by yourself without a law degree for sure. But even with the law degree, sometimes having someone walk you through this, and that's what we do at the Elder Law Coach. Some people think, you know, my background, what I'm doing now is not going to fit into elder law. Well, you may be surprised. Some of my best elder law attorneys are family law attorneys. They've worked with families for years, but they don't want to do divorces where they're tearing apart a family and dealing with fighting and and everything, trying to get mine, mine, mine. We work with families who hopefully we can bring them together. This is a time that they can come together and help mom or dad or finally come together and say, look, let's put our differences aside. Let's come together and let's do what's best for this person who's needing care or in this family situation. And I always found it strange, you know, not strange, but interesting that the title that we can carry is a counselor of law, okay? And I always thought that was interesting. I was like, when do lawyers counsel people? Well, in Elder Law, you do a lot of counseling. And a lot of our day is spent at the conference table, meeting with families, sometimes not on the same page, but trying to get them to come together, counsel them on what the law says, how we're we're going to apply this law to your situation and get this situation taken care of. So, you know, if you're a family law attorney, you're going to fit in here very well, but you don't have to go to court and your clients love you and you generally like your clients. Okay. So that's that's something that's typically very different that I've seen from elder law, I mean, from family law attorneys who come in to elder law. If you're good at negotiating, if if you're good at you know helping people see the the other side and be able to mediate or come together, absolutely, this is the line of work for you because we have a lot of situations where families are not seeing eye to eye and they need someone to present this to them, say, look, let's come together, compromise, compromise, let's fix this problem. Okay. Um litigation. If if you love litigation, there is plenty of litigation to do. But I find that a lot of litigators are tired of letting the court dictate what their schedule is. In elder law, you are very much able to say, this is my schedule, and we're going to follow my schedule. Okay. I think if you've listened to the show very much, you know I work two days a week. Okay. I see clients on two days a week, and I am very adamant that that's when clients see me. They take off work, they do what needs to be done. If they want to see me, they come in two days a week. All right. So you're very much in control of your schedule. You're seeing clients every hour. You're not in court waiting, pilling, you know, trying to get to your case. The people come to you and it's a very nice way. And so if that's how you function now as a litigator, we can change that. Okay. Very little litigation if you don't want, but if you do want it, there are people. We need good litigators to do guardianships and sometimes fight the state for us. And so there are a few high-level litigators in elder law associations, and they travel the country doing litigation. So if you just absolutely love litigation, but you're tired of doing what you're doing right now, talk to me. Use those skills the best way we can. All right. And if you're ready for an empathetic practice, one where you sit down with clients and you kind of feel their pain and share with this and say, I know this is hard, but I've been through this numerous times and I'm going to help you through this. Okay. Um, this is a great line of work. Okay. People come to us having their worst days. Okay. They've just put a loved one into the nursing home. Someone's just died and they're trying to figure out what to do. I mean, it's it's it's a very heartfelt emotional practice. But if you do want to be on the same page with your client and help them through this situation, it's a fantastic practice. If you're thinking about getting into Elder Law, I encourage you to go to my website, theelderlawcoach.com, sign up, let's talk. Okay. Let's figure out what you're doing now. Let's figure out what you you want to do in the future and how we can get you there. Okay. It's a great practice. I would encourage it and I would be very honored to help you help you do that. Okay. So thank you for listening. Um again, go to theelderlawcoach.com, and there's a lot of good information there. And I would encourage you to go and let's talk and let's figure out if we can get you doing elder law and do what I think is the best job in the world. Okay. Thanks. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you for joining this episode of the Elder Law Coach Podcast. For those eager to take their elder law practice to new heights and are interested in Todd's acclaimed coaching program, visit www.theelderlawcoach.com. With Todd Watley by your side, the journey to becoming an elder law authority has never been more achievable. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing, and stay passionate about elder law.