NAELA SUMMIT
Bringing the Practice of Elder Law and Special Needs Planning to Life
By Michael J. Amoruso, Esq., and Professor Roberta K. Flowers
The Second Annual NAELA Summit built on the innovative ideas and energy of the Inaugural Summit in 2015. This summit aspired to take participants deeper into themselves, their practices, and the law.
What’s Your Type?
The Summit began with a request that participants take a personality test to help them appreciate how the personality of the attorney and the client can affect the success of the representation. Dr. Kimberly Gilbey shared with the audience that the way an attorney views the world may not be the same as the way the client sees it. She explained that “personality types are a frame for understanding the different ways people respond to situations, process information, make decisions, and handle stress.” She encouraged the attorneys to use the information about personality traits to adjust their communication to learn to “speak into the client’s listening.” Many participants displayed their personality traits on their name badges throughout the conference, which was a great icebreaker for many conversations.
Immersive and Interactive Sessions
This year, the Summit introduced three-hour immersion sessions to allow participants to dive deep into specific subjects including office/employee management, estate planning, and capacity issues. Additionally, the participants could attend shorter breakout sessions on a variety of topics from writing a concise letter, advising SNT trustees, to valuing your services. Much like last year, the Summit was designed to encourage “peer-to-peer education.” Participants learned not only from the facilitators, who spent many hours preparing for their sessions, but also from each other. Through small group discussions, role playing, and interactive presentations, the participants shared their expertise with each other. NAELA members’ generosity in sharing their knowledge and practical tips never ceases to amaze.
Days at the Summit started early, with breakfast workshops on technology. On Friday, we were amazed by the many apps that Scott Grossberg introduced. On Saturday, for the first time in Apple history, members of a Genius Squad conducted a class outside of an Apple store. Summit participants were introduced to many of the accessibility options available on iPhones and iPads. During the presentation, “geniuses” roamed the audience helping those of us with no technology aptitude to maneuver through the different options. What a treat it was to actually figure out how to make Siri talk to me with a man’s English-accented voice.
Networking, Networking, Networking
No NAELA conference would be complete without ample opportunities to renew old friendships and make new connections. The Summit began the morning with a First-Time Attendee Reception, where the attendees learned how much they had in common with each other, while they competed to have the most commonalities with their table mates. We learned that one table of first-time attendees all spoke a romance language, while another table discovered that none of them had allergies. Participants at the Opening Reception enjoyed an evening under a beautiful clear California sky. The culture of NAELA was in full evidence at the Opening Reception, as attendees delighted in spending time with colleagues who shared their passion for serving some of the most vulnerable of our society. On Friday, participants shared a meal with colleagues from their state. The conference hall was alive with conversations about issues faced by Elder Law and Special Needs Planning attorneys within their own jurisdictions.
For those of you who didn’t make it to Newport Beach this year, the 2017 Summit will be held in November 2017 and promises to be another wonderful opportunity to learn from the best facilitators and more importantly from each other.
On behalf of the 2016 Summit Planning Committee, we would like to thank each and every attendee for their enthusiastic participation. A big “Thank You” goes to our amazing NAELA staff, without whom nothing can happen. We hope we see you all back in Newport Beach next year!
Immersion sessions, hands-on learning, and plenty of time for networking were the hallmarks of the 2016 NAELA Summit.
About the Authors
Michael J. Amoruso, Esq., and Professor Roberta K. Flowers are the co-chairs of the 2016 Summit Planning Committee.
SeminarRev
Special Thanks to Our 2016 Summit Implementation Committee
Co-chairs
Michael Amoruso, Esq.
Professor Roberta K. Flowers
Members
A. Frank Johns, LLM, CELA, CAP
Michael A. Kirtland, CELA, CAP
Professor Rebecca C. Morgan, CAP
Bridget O’Brien Swartz, Esq.
Jennifer VanderVeen, CELA
Todd M. Whatley, LLM, CELA
Seminar Reviews
By Leonard Mondschein, CELA, CAP, and Ruth Ratzlaff, Esq.
Explaining the Value of Your Fees to Clients
Michael Weeks, CELA, spoke on “Explaining the Value of Your Fees to Clients.” Michael does not charge a consultation fee, and emphasized the importance of “conversion” or getting potential clients to become actual clients. Michael can detect if the potential client is just shopping around, and wraps up those appointments quickly.
For more serious potential clients, he advises them on the next steps as their matter moves forward. Michael suggested that attorneys who are having trouble with their conversion rates consider having a colleague sit in on a consultation and critique weaknesses.
Michael agreed that flat-fee billing is a way to give cost certainty to vulnerable clients in stressful situations. This requires that the attorney knows in advance how much time the matter will take and adds a profit margin.
Michael’s lack of a consultation fee generated a response from one attendee who charges a substantial consultation fee covering an initial meeting of several hours and a short written plan sent to the clients after the meeting.
Regardless of the method of billing, Michael emphasized that the attorney needs to be confident and comfortable with the amount of the fee.
Robert Anderson, CELA, CAP, helpfully circulated copies of his fee chart (with dollar amounts redacted) which shows what each plan or package includes and which credit cards are accepted.
R.R.
Saturday Morning Rise ’n Shine Technology
If you have always wondered what else you could do with your iPhone or iPad besides making calls, reading and sending emails, and checking Facebook, this early Saturday morning session was the answer.
Three “Geniuses” from a local Apple store mesmerized us with options that are easily accessed on Apple devices. Many of these options are found under the “Settings” button. For example, one function enables the user to increase the size of the text displayed, while another adds a magnifying glass to the page of the device that you are reading. Another option demonstrated the ability for the reader to read the news without having to view the advertising on each page. This feature makes it less distracting when reading a story.
The “Geniuses” also showed attendees “Anytime Keyboard,” which enables dictation to create text, and preserves the recording. In addition, by pressing a button, an email can be read aloud. The same principle applies to iBooks, which can be downloaded and read back to you. This feature is very useful for long road trips!
Since many of us represent clients with disabilities, the audience found it interesting to see specific features that can improve the quality of life for our clients. One option allows the device to move from screen to screen by just the movement of someone’s head tilting in either direction. A second feature can be used for those with hearing aids by allowing the device to pick up the sound of a person speaking, such as in a lecture hall, and transmitting the sound directly through the hearing aid rather than just amplifying the sound. If a client has trouble hearing all musical instruments due to being deaf in one ear, an adjustment can be made so that all sound is transmitted to the better-functioning ear. Clients can also keep the device on one app for an extended period of time using “Guided Access.”
As a final tip given by our presenters, you can arrange with your local Apple store to have a training session on iOS devices for your staff so that your office may take advantage of the technology already at hand.
L.M.
Delivering Bad News to Clients
Shirley Whitenack, CAP, spoke on “Delivering Bad News to Clients — How to Be the Messenger of Bad News Without Being Shot.”
One way to minimize bad news is to manage client expectations. Shirley cautioned against overpromising. It’s better to have the draft documents arrive earlier than clients expect than have them call to ask why the drafts haven’t arrived yet.
Another tactic is to weed out potential problem clients. A non-engagement letter is a good tool.
Bad news should be delivered verbally, in person if possible, by the attorney. No e-mail, text message, or pushing it off on the paralegal. That way the right tone can be adopted and the bad news is not made worse by offending the client.
When reporting mistakes to the client, nine times out of 10, “we won’t charge you” makes the pain go away, according to Shirley’s experience.
R.R.
How to Be Social on Social Media
Robin Krooks is the Director of Marketing and Technology for her husband Howie Krooks’ law firm, Elder Law Associates. She gave a presentation on “How to Be Social on Social Media.”
She cautioned us to keep personal and business interests separate. This may require using a different middle initial or middle name to open more than one account on Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and Pinterest.
She said the learning curve for social media is like learning to drive. You start by driving in vacant parking lots and posting only minimal information on Facebook. As you get more comfortable, you try city streets and posting photos. And so it grows.
Potential clients who are Millennials (ages 18–34) expect a web site and Facebook and Twitter at least. Generation Y clients (33–50) expect at least Facebook. Robin suggested starting with one platform and adding others.
She also advised us to identify the strategic goals and purpose of the account. Is it to increase the volume of clients? Perform service by educating the public? Be a resource to referral sources? All purposes need to be addressed on an ongoing basis.
Robin reported that to come up in the top of a Goggle search, new material needs to be added to each social media account multiple times a day multiple days each week. “Original content is king.”
There are “dashboard” applications that can integrate the same information being posted on all the social media platforms the firm uses.
R.R.
Drafting SNTs
Stuart Zimring, CAP, spoke on “Drafting SNTs.” He emphasized that forms and templates are just a beginning point in drafting. Flexibility is key, since the progression of a beneficiary’s disability may be uncertain and changes in laws and regulations are also unpredictable.
The flexibility should include the ability to decant the trust corpus into a special needs trust that complies with the change in the beneficiary’s circumstance or the change in the law.
Stuart did note that with the Affordable Care Act, Medicaid eligibility is not as critical.
Bond requirements for trustees can be annoying, but they can also eliminate family members who would have been a bad choice anyway.
R.R.
About the Author
Leonard Mondschein, CELA, CAP, is a member of the NAELA News Editorial Board and the NAELA Board of Directors. Ruth Ratzlaff, Esq., is NAELA News Editor in Chief.
The Advanced Elder Law Review: Leaning In, Kicking Back, and Settling Down
By Jan Goldberg Zager, Esq.
Is the Advanced Elder Law Review for you? Learn about one attendee’s experience.
To say that I approached the Advanced Elder Law Review (AELR) with trepidation would be an understatement. Overwhelmed by the idea of 14 subject areas over approximately the same number of class hours, I also feared the social aspects of an immersion experience. The fact that it is billed as a good review for the CELA exam did not help; I had already decided that at 61 and with 35 years of legal experience behind me, taking that exam was probably not in my future since the last exam I took was the New York bar exam in 1981.
What Is the Advanced Elder Law Review?
So what is the AELR and should you attend next year? It depends. It is not a beginner’s survey class. So before considering the AELR, think about whether you should start with the NAELA Essentials Online course and then go to the live Essentials Practicum Workshop. It’s not that you should do one instead of the other, but if you don’t have a lot of more senior Elder Law practitioners mentoring you in your area, think about whether you should just jump into the AELR. The more you know, the better the AELR is. You need some framework in each area to file, hang, stick, i.e. whatever your image of how you learn and how you process information, the sheer quantity, and wide variety of material.
I would have appreciated some further pre-class direction and information about how to prepare, but that may have just been my anxiety speaking. It certainly was helpful to review any materials posted in advance as much as time allowed. It helped to tell myself things like, “OK, I know this, but I don’t know that. This is something I have to focus on from scratch; this is something that I can listen to with more ease.”
I tried to listen intently, take handwritten notes, and then transcribe at night. This initial processing and alone time worked for me and helped separate the second day from the first.
As for the social immersion, even for this introvert (an INFP, as I learned at the Summit) the social aspect was an all-round positive. Sitting at round tables meant that we immediately had “our tribe” for at least the first session. It was easy to whisper and pass notes and then have someone to process things with at the break. The faculty was accessible though some made a greater effort than others to seek out and encourage discussion and questioning. And while I didn’t participate in the AELR to make friends or meet some of the NAELA “big wigs,” it broke down barriers (real or imaginary) that I had felt as a relatively new NAELA member and a “transitioning” attorney. Not only are there now faces to tie to the names I read online or in NAELA News, but I had instant subject matter to discuss with those names. The more informal times, sometimes in the elevator, at meals, and at the reception were times to relax and turn teachers into mentors and colleagues.
I’m Different After AELR
Finally, there is nothing like time. It is now about a month after attending the AELR. I have settled back into my life and practice. But I am different since the AELR experience. Not only do I know more, I am not an imposter when I say I am an Elder Law attorney. After all, I have all those friends, mentors, and experienced colleagues now. And just maybe, I may consider another exam down the road.
About the Author
Jan Goldberg Zager, Esq., is a member of the NAELA News Editorial Board.