The Graying of America and the Law : Demand Grows for Legal Training to Help the Elderly

The graying of America caught up with John Regan early this fall.

For the first time in a decade, the Hofstra University law professor was forced to turn away students who sought enrollment in his popular seminar on law and psychiatry, which examines questions on medical ethics such as the right to die and guardianship contracts.

“I was astounded when I had to close my seminar in the fall” to about 10 students, said the chagrined professor.

At Hofstra in New York and other law schools throughout the nation, law professors are witnessing an unprecedented demand for training in law that assists students in drafting unique legal arrangements for a growing elderly population.

All of the nation’s 175 accredited law schools require students to complete course work in contracts, torts and constitutional law that invariably touches on issues of concern to the elderly.

But many law schools have classes or are devising course work that offer in-depth examinations of legal questions confronting seniors.

Thirty-five schools offer 40 courses in “elder law,” according to a forthcoming survey conducted by the American Bar Assn.’s Commission on Legal Problems of the Elderly. The courses cover a wide range of topics, from guardianship and pension contracts to age-discrimination laws.

Some schools have created entire departments. Four years ago, two universities had centers of law and medicine, in which students of medicine and law could study the complicated ethical and contractual questions facing old people. Today, eight universities have such programs.

Despite the proliferation of these courses, not all lawyers consider the specialization of elder law a healthy evolution.

“I think it would be a fine thing if we saw an increasing number of law students and lawyers developing a practice for older clients,” asserts Howard Eglit, a professor at Chicago’s Kent College of Law and a leading expert on age-discrimination law. “On the other hand, I don’t think that in the main the legal problems of older people are so unique that we have to specialize in elder law.”

Eglit says the growing emphasis would portend greater “isolation” of the elderly. “The more we equate guardianship with older people, the more we strengthen the stereotype that they are incompetent.”

Law-school professors attribute the emerging specialization of “elder law” to technological breakthroughs that can extend life and, increasingly, to complicated health-care financing schemes.

There is also money to be made from older clients for work on estates and wills and from the government’s pension programs, particularly Medicare and Social Security.

Over the 23 years since its inception, Medicare has grown from a minor financial provider to the dominant form of insurance for people 65 or over. Most physicians have at least several Medicare clients, and many depend on the program, which is one of the fastest-growing segments of the federal budget.

“There are a lot of law firms making lots of money on Medicare reimbursements,” Eglit observes.

Last year alone, 11,000 lawsuits were brought against the Social Security Administration for the denial of benefits. An estimated 44,000 cases await resolution. Claims and lawsuits are expected to continue to soar if the incoming Bush administration attempts to trim the Medicare budget and other benefit programs.

However, money is not the sole motivating factor for law firms and law students to specialize in government pension programs.

Medicare and Social Security benefits present the legal community with a challenging and complicated fabric of rules and regulations that regularly change.

In addition, lawyers are being sought out by older clients as financial planners and advisers who assist in everything from drafting wills and right-to-die contracts, to suing the government and arranging retirement care.

“What I think the law on aging offers for the ‘90s is a chance for the law schools to introduce students to seeing the law as a vehicle for dealing with a new social problem--the graying of America,” says Regan of Hofstra.