Hey there, Legal Tea Listeners –This is your host, Jenny Rozelle. Welcome back for another episode today! Today is a “current trends” topic where we talk about things going on currently that are relevant and pertinent to my estate and elder law world, and/or maybe things I’ve seen on the news or stumbled across on social media. Well, on today’s “current trends” episode, we’re going to talk about something that I stumbled across … about a law firm, an elder law firm nonetheless, that abruptly closed leaving clients scrambling, cases not being addressed, and a lot of people concerned about “what’s next?” Let me give you the scoop of the story – at least what we know right now – and then I’ll go into some general tips that maybe are good to know if and when you ever need to start a relationship with a law firm. Maybe some good questions to ask to make sure you don’t end up like the clients of this Florida law firm.
So, the story goes a little something like this…
There is a law firm in Polk County, Florida called Family Elder Law and according to an article by Fox 13 Tampa Bay, Family Elder Law has a few locations – one in Lakeland, another in Lake Wales, and a third location in Sebring. To give you a little timing – I’m writing and recording this episode in the first few days of August 2024. This Fox 13 article was released on July 31st and according to them, the Family Elder Law offices have been closed for about 2 weeks. I was kind of nosey and went to look up their website – and the website is even shut down. I looked for social media accounts, too, and got a whole bunch of nothing. This episode is set to release in late August – August 20th – so it will be interesting to see if there are any updates between now, August 1st, and then August 20th – and if not, what happens in the short-term future.
The Fox 13 article shares a story and statement from a woman named Leticia, who is taking care of her mother – her mother is 91 years old and suffers from Alzheimer’s and recovering from a fall and a stroke. Leticia shared that she was trying to figure out her options because her mother needed more care than she could provide – she said, “I was trying to navigate how to get her the best possible care, because in my opinion, she needed 24/7 care, and I wasn’t going to be able to provide that. I have a full family with kids.” Because of this, she contacted Family Elder Law to have them help her pursue Medicaid benefits for her mother to help afford the nursing home. She ended up hiring the law firm on July 1st, 2024 and paid them a $4500 retainer from her mother’s savings.
A mere couple weeks later, on July 18th, she dropped my one of the office locations to give them some paperwork for the Medicaid application and learned at that time, the firm had closed its doors! Can you imagine the shock when she found that out? Oh my gosh. Leticia continued by sharing with Fox 13 that “We have never been contacted by his office. There was no notice at all he would be closing. We’ve never been approached with an offer of a refund.” She continued, “My poor mother is the person who has been victimized.” I doubt my podcast reaches anyone impacted or affected, but just in case, I wanted to mention this: A resource for those impacted that was shared was by a spokesperson from the Florida Attorney General’s Office, who said that anyone who feels they were harmed by lawyer misconduct should file a complaint with the Florida Bar since they are the “official arm of the Florida Supreme Court and the entity with jurisdiction over attorney discipline in Florida.”
After hearing Leticia’s story, Fox 13 did some digging. You see, the law firm is owned by someone named Jason Penrod. The Florida Bar website shows that he’s in “good standing” but someone with the Bar confirmed (to Fox 13) that they are investigating him (and what has happened). Beyond that, Fox 13 also attempted to email the law firm, too. They did get a reply and all it said was, “Due to unforeseen circumstances, Family Elder Law is in the process of closing its operations.” No actual reason was given for the closure. According to an article in Lake Wales News, which as a reminder, Lake Wales is one of the areas where Family Elder Law had a location, Jason, the owner, texted a statement saying, “Unfortunately, and with a heavy heart, I will be closing Family Elder Law in the near future. In the interim, we will be providing additional information and options to our clients to manage their cases in the best possible way.”
To add to the mystery and perhaps drama, the Lake Wales News article shared a post from the website, Reddit, where a former employee of Family Elder Law said, “I was an employee of the company and they did close unexpectedly and gave us less than a week’s notice. We did not return calls or emails, and frankly, I do not know what actually has happened. We were given no info and tied up operations en masse on Thursday last week.” Like I mentioned earlier, things are the very early stage – at this literal moment, we don’t know a lot, but I’m sure as time passes, more information will be released. We can all assume a lot of things, but until more comes out, I’m not going to say much more than what I’ve shared on here … I mean, my goodness, this situation is so sad.
I think it’s a good point in the episode to discuss maybe some things to consider … or maybe tips if you want or need to start a relationship with any attorney – while this situation was tragically and unfortunately an elder law attorney, it could happen, I suppose, to any type of attorney. There are a few things that come to mind that will protect you as a client. First, when you start looking for an attorney for whatever your legal need is, be sure to look them up on the state directory, or most states call it their roll (r-o-l-l) of attorneys, to see if they 1) are in “good standing” and 2) have had had disciplinary cases against them. (Side note: You can do something similar for financial professionals, too, through something called BrokerCheck. Just wanted to mention that!)
Anyway, while most attorneys are fine and dandy, as in they are considered to be in “good standing” with the State (that is, they are not in any trouble, haven’t retired, haven’t died, etc.) as well as most don’t have disciplinary actions against them, it does NOT hurt to check and confirm. Can you imagine how mad at yourself you would be if you started an attorney-client relationship with an attorney, they do something bad, and THEN you find out … “Oh gosh, this isn’t the first time this person has done something bad or something like this!” So yeah, since I’m in the State of Indiana, I can speak to us – if you just google Indiana Roll of Attorneys, there’s a site that ends in .gov at the top … you go there, and type in the attorney’s name … and it should pop up. Once you click on their name, you can see if they’re in good standing and if they’ve ever had a disciplinary action against them. I’m sure most states follow a similar process. Just maybe type in your state name and then “roll of attorneys.”
Now, a second thing you can do to protect yourself as a client is straight-up ask the attorney what their short-term and long-term plan is if something were to happen to them. Let’s pretend in this Family Elder Law case that we find out that the owner experienced a massive mental health breakdown or got a terrible medical diagnosis (I have NO idea – I’m saying this as an example) … and let’s pretend that he had not thought about something like that before and it left his firm in jeopardy, then he couldn’t rebound or something. Regardless, my point with this tip is ask the attorney what their plan is if something happened to them – as in incapacity or even death – and you’ll be able to tell by their reaction if it’s crossed their mind at all. Here in Indiana, the State prefers, I can’t remember if it’s required, but prefers at the very least that we designate a “surrogate” attorney, which means that if something happens to us, that’s the attorney responsible for taking over and taking care of the clients.
Beyond a surrogate, it’d sure by nice, and maybe I’m saying this because I’m an estate attorney after all, if they have their estate and succession plan done – meaning they don’t just have a surrogate listed, they have a whole plan. Again, maybe it’s because I do this sort of thing for a living, but my husband and I (we co-own our law firm) have a very elaborate estate and succession plan in place in case something happened to us. At the end of the day, I take full responsibility for NOT ONLY our firm’s clients, of course, but my employees too. Like the Family Elder Law employee, they got a one week notice that the doors were closing. I cannot even begin to imagine doing that to my employees. Employees rely on us to be good stewards of the business, so they can provide for their family and put food on their table too. So yeah, this second tip is asking the attorney what their plan is if something happens to them, whether it’s a short-term absence or long-term.
Lastly, a final tip is making sure you and the attorney sign an engagement agreement documenting that an attorney-client relationship actually exists, documenting the services they are providing, documenting the payment terms (what is owed and when), etc. That way, if something happens to the attorney, there’s a document, a contract nonetheless, that shows that the relationship actually exists (don’t have to “prove” it exists, you know?), that shows exactly what you hired them to do for you (again, so you don’t have to play the game of telephone on what they were supposedly helping you with); and finally, exactly when payments were due and owed – which would also show if perhaps a refund is appropriate or not.
As we wrap this episode up, I’ll try to keep an eye on the facts of this case involving Family Elder Law and if it warrants a follow-up episode, I’ll do another one. Regardless, it’s such a terrible and frustrating situation. On behalf of the legal community, I just feel this need to apologize to the clients and employees of Family Elder Law. You deserved better. I’m so sorry.
Okay, let’s wrap this episode up, shall we? Next week, we’re back to the “celebrity estate planning” type of episode – and during those types of episodes, we dive into a celebrity or “big name” person that has passed away and how their estate looked from an estate planning perspective. Next week’s episode is about Payne Stewart – a very famous professional golfer, who died in a tragic and freak accident on an airplane. So, tune in to that next week, Legal Tea Listeners, talk to you then and stay well!
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