Elder Abuse: Tragedy and Triumph, a Practitioner’s Perspective

“My isolation leaves me weak,

however just my cause.

But opposing you, old as I am,

I will stop at nothing.”

– Sophocles.

 

As practitioners, Jurists, and medical professionals alike have all increasingly recognized, elder abuse is one of the most alarming, fastest growing, and tragic social issues of the early twenty-first century.

Although there is much disagreement if this trend is attributable to an increase in reporting, a greater formal acknowledgement of the issue, a larger and more inclusive definition of what constitutes elder abuse itself, or if elder abuse is indeed occurring with greater frequency, the unsettling fact remains that with life expectancy increasing and greater numbers of the American population enter senior citizenship, abuse rates for people over the age of sixty-five are rising.

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Turning the (Board Room) Tables: Corporate Dissolution at Common Law

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

– Thomas Jefferson

 

Whether one’s Trusts and Estates practice focuses on planning, administration, and/or litigation, advising a client on the creation, disposition, or distribution, of a closely held corporation is something that most Surrogate’s Court practitioners will be confronted with at least one point in their careers.