Arizona Attorney, 85, Pioneers a Busy Practice of ‘Elder Law’

Amelia Lewis, an 85-year-old Sun City, Ariz., attorney who began practicing law at a time when judges made injudicious remarks about “lady lawyers,” is a pioneer once again.

A lawyer for 63 years, Lewis remembers at least one eminent jurist telling her that her place was in the kitchen--not the courtroom. She has withstood the assaults on the role of female lawyers quite nicely.

Now she has a bustling “elder law” practice--although she is too down-to-earth to use that term. “I have a general practice,” she said.

Yet in Sun City, where nearly everyone is retired except a couple of bankers who are taking care of the investments of the well-heeled residents, senior citizens are turning to lawyers more and more. The Sun City seniors, and many others around the nation, are wealthier and healthier than ever, and are looking to attorneys to preserve their good fortune.

In fact, the senior legal business is so lucrative that a group of lawyers, headed by Allan Bogutz of Tucson, Ariz., has banded together to form the National Academy of Elder Law. It runs a referral service. Seniors can call the Tucson number--602-577-8444--for the name of a lawyer specializing in elder law who practices in their area.

The specialists handle age-discrimination suits, Medicare claims, estate planning--and, increasingly, divorces. Presumably, senior-citizen lawyers like Lewis, who are dealing with some of the same legal problems in their own lives, can provide unique counsel to elderly clients.

But Lewis said she has never heard of the National Academy of Elder Law, and Bogutz, its president, has “no idea” how many of the lawyers on his roster are seniors. Nevertheless, Lewis has been practicing her own brand of senior law, including handling divorce cases among the golden-age crowd.

“There are, surprisingly, more than expected. One woman who had been married for 47 years said, ‘I’ve had it up to here. In my remaining years, I don’t want any more of it.’ ”

Lewis does not get involved in marriage counseling, but she has some thoughts on why senior-citizen divorce seems to be on the rise.

“In the first place,” she said, “adultery used to be the only cause for divorce. Now in Arizona we have no-fault divorce. All you have to do is say that your marriage is irretrievably broken, and there is nothing the other side can do to change it.”

The only aspect of elder law that Lewis doesn’t want to get involved in is working on Medicare claims.

“I need to make $100 an hour to run my office and break even,” she said. “Medicare claims take too long.”

Lewis was in the nation’s capital recently to receive the first Amicus Award of the Assn. of Trial Lawyers of America, which honored her for her pioneering the “vital role of women in the legal profession.”

She was also recognized for her defense work in the landmark 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case when she represented a minor, Gerald Francis Gault, 15, who had been committed to a detention home without due process of law. The decision granted juveniles access to counsel and, therefore, equal justice under the law.

“I raised three children with many advantages,” she said. “Our aim in Gault was to secure a verdict for children less fortunate and for those who require immediate treatment. At that time, kids were being warehoused until they were 21.”