The Basic Legal Emergency Documents for Everyone in the United States 18 and Over

Find Security and Contentment In Life By Knowing That When Something Goes Wrong, Your Family Will Be Prepared Legally, Medically, Financially and Emotionally

This Preventive Law Study was written by:  John Goodson, Colleen Manley and Christine Goodson Forakis.

Summary

In the 1940's I was a member of a mountain rescue team called The Kachinas (Mountain Gods). Our group had been formed and taught by a famous mountain climber, Ray Garder. For fifty years of climbing, no one in our group was killed or seriously hurt while climbing! We had a steadfast rule that no climbers may leave on a climbing expedition without presenting a written emergency plan to the group identifying every possible emergency which could hurt them and identifying what they had designated to carry in their backpacks to handle each emergency.

Families and individuals are on a life expedition with similar dangers – death, disability, mental illness and serious injuries. They must carry in their imaginary backpacks the right legal documents and other equipment to take care of each catastrophe before and if it occurs. Following is the list of the Preventive Law Documents every adult American needs:

1. A Durable Medical Power of Attorney (DMPA) will appoint your legal agents to care for you in the hospital when you cannot direct the doctors yourself. Without a DPMA, you will have delays in your treatment and without having the DPMA someone will have to go to the local courthouse to seek appointment as a legal guardian.
2. A Durable Living Will (DLW) designates your surrogate to assist you when you are dying, to decide when to “pull the plugs” and direct your palliative care. Without a DLW, the medical professional may keep you alive and in pain indefinitely, enduring something worse than death and eating up your wealth in useless medical care, unless, of course, the family initiates very expensive, complicated, and questionably successful court proceedings.
3. A Durable Mental Health Power of Attorney (DMHPA) will allow your designated agent to confine you for mental health care, without the costs and embarrassment of a full boat mental health hearing. Without a DMHPA, you will not be able to sign yourself out of a protective institution while still mentally impaired, and require your family to use force to capture you and submit you to an expensive courthouse mental health hearing with multiple lawyers, multiple doctors and emotionally charged proceedings.
4. A Durable General Power of Attorney (DGPA) will permit your designated agents to sign legal documents and dispersement checks for you while you are disabled, missing or away. Without the DGPA, your legal and financial matters will fall into disarray, deadlines will be missed, and important matters may not be handled without going to the courthouse to petition for the appointment of a Legal Conservator and expending large amounts of money on attorneys’ fees, doctors and surety bonds.
5. Durable Funeral and Burial Instructions (DFBI) will prevent arguments and psychological hurts during the after death process. Without the DFBI, family members who are next of kin may quarrel over details of the funeral and burial, each one “absolutely sure of what Dad wanted.” Family members may also have psychological remorse over whether they selected the correct pallbearers, the right coffin, the best person to offer the eulogy – and worry about their sensitive errors for the rest of their lives.
6. A Last Will and Testament (LWT) will allow you to designate a personal representative who will handle your affairs at death, who will be the guardian and conservator for you and your children, and who will receive your property on death. Without the LWT, the wrong persons may be appointed by the court to handle your affairs and property after you die, or the court may appoint inappropriate persons to care for you in a nursing home, or raise your minor children. Also without a LWT, the legal fees, surety bonds and other fees will be greater.
7. HIPAA Authorization. New federal laws have been enacted to protect the privacy of health care information. These laws also have civil and criminal penalties for non-compliance. You must have the HIPAA Authorization documents in order for physicians and other medical staff to release your health information to your loved ones if you enter their facility and are unable to respond yourself to their HIPAA release documents. Imagine the complications of your loved ones not having access to your medical records in an emergency.
8. A Personal Property Inventory List (PPIL) will designate individuals to receive your personal effects, household goods, and other moveable property. We have experienced some of the most bitter arguments over who gets Mother’s wedding ring or Dad’s gold watch. Your Last Will and Testament will authorize the making of a PPIL in your own handwriting, detailing who gets each one of your treasured articles and eliminating the chance of bickering over them. It is also a good idea to have a complete inventory on video of what is in your home and second home to avoid controversy over what was there when you died.
9. A Statement of Wishes (SOW) will give your family instructions on how you want them to: (1) take care of you if you are incapacitated; (2) deal with your property; and (3) carry on your family culture. Without a written SOW, your family will worry about whether they have your blessing and guidance in what they do. During your life, didn’t you acquire some experience and good ideas that you want to preserve for your family?
10. A Locator of Important Documents and Things (LIDT) will list where you keep and hide legal documents, car keys, money, jewelry, so that these may be quickly found by your family when you die or become disabled. My father always had $2,000.00 in cash in his home at all times. It took five children five hours to find it under his file cabinet after he died. Without the LIDT, kept current, you will doom your progeny to expensive “Easter egg hunts” or forever losing key documents and valuables of the family.
11. An inventory of the Items in your safety deposit box or family safe will prevent family rhubarbs over whether or not the first family member to open the safe took something for themselves. Without this, you are destined to foster distrust and supposed guilt in even the best of families where they perceive someone took something from the safe before others got there.
12. Enough life insurance to take care of your loved ones, pay your debts, and provide for your children’s education. Even inexpensive term life insurance is enough to cover your needs. You will have the ability to replace your earnings, make sure you do not leave death and debts both, and insure that all family members receive the necessary education. This is a mathematical number that may easily be calculated.
13. Umbrella liability insurance will prevent your accumulated wealth from being wiped out from an accident lawsuit. Yes, you may be hit with an accident at your home or in your car. You need at least one million of umbrella liability insurance to take care of who you injure and prevent losing your wealth to a court judgment against you.
    
    Although these are not documents, we also recommend that you:
14. Leave a family legacy. There are companies that provide a kit with instructions on how to record your life story so that the wealth of your thoughts and experience will be passed on to your progeny and not be lost forever. Do you want your children to avoid your mistakes? Or not have the benefit of what you learned during life?
15. Practice charitable giving for necessary institutions. You and your family need a standby (1) Religious institution for your family events: christenings, marriages, funerals; (2) friendly hospital for deliveries and surgeries; and (3) hospice organization to provide palliative care during the time of your death. It is important to identify and support those philanthropic organizations that enhance your family so that you know who to contact when you need them, and that you will have a special welcome when you seek their help.
16. Engage a family attorney who will be able to safeguard your legal documents and be available for answering questions and handling emergencies. Our firm provides the services of a Family Attorney. For an annual fee of $10.00 per month, the firm:
    1. 16.1     Safeguards your legal documents in a fire proof safe in the office, so they are available immediately when an emergency occurs;
    2. 16.2     Maintains the contact information for all your key family members and professional consultants;
    3. 16.3     Provides you with emergency phone lists of all its attorneys;
    4. 16.4.      Allows you to schedule complimentary evening consultations with its attorneys at any time to answer questions or provide advice.

Are you prepared for Life’s Expedition?

Do you have all of these emergency protective measures in place?

If your Revocable Trust and other assets are worth more than $100,000.00, you want to confer with our attorneys to prepare additional documents for your family’s backpack to handle, what will be, the great complexities in your life.

For additional information, please call (602) 252-5110.

For additional Preventive Law Studies, visit our website: www.goodsonmanleyforakis.com

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