Attorney Elizabeth L. Gray is a panelist for the Annual Joint Councils Event: Navigating Mental Illness and Addiction Issues in Estate Planning and Administration. This presentation, sponsored in party by the Northern Virginia Estate Planning Council, is scheduled for Tuesday, April 26.
"Nearly one in five adults in the United States lives with a mental illness or addiction of varying degrees of severity, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. It stands to reason that many of them may be our clients, the beneficiaries of our clients, our colleagues, even ourselves or our families. As estate planning professionals, we are not always adequately prepared to identify, understand or appropriately respond when confronted with the manifestation of a mental illness – whether as a quiet but festering familial conflict, or an outburst of a frustrated beneficiary.
Drafting and administering estate plans for clients or beneficiaries with mental illness can be challenging: we want to plan and administer in such a way that empowers the person and enables them to act as independently as possible, protects them from negative consequences of their illness, and helps them get access to treatment, while taking into consideration their employment and earning prospects, supports that they may need intermittently or constantly throughout their lives, and their family relationships."
For more information or to register, click here.
