We had a great time helping two veterans through the Stetson Wills for Warriors program. On Tuesday, February 21, 2017, we joined this event hosted by The Center for Excellence in Elder Law at Stetson University College of Law. This important program is in its 5th year and offers free simple estate planning documents, including a will, living will, and health care surrogate, to low-income elderly veterans and their spouses. This not only serves as a valuable service and a thank you to our veterans, but also allows Stetson Law students to have real client interactions, work on real legal documents, and become exposed to the estate planning process.
We took our time helping these veterans and discussing the estate planning process with our two student helpers. We discussed that good estate planning is not just document drafting, but good advice on how to make sure your client's wishes were followed when they are not able to speak for themselves.
When all was done, we invited the veterans we worked with to create a free durable power of attorney at our office. The Stetson program did not offer powers of attorney, but we wanted to make sure our veterans were taken care of properly upon both their death and their incapacity.
We had a great time and look forward to doing it again next year!