The Attorney is In

LAS has a long history of spending time out in the community as a means of reaching out to those who need help. Our attorneys visit Alameda County senior centers once a month where they meet with individuals in need of their assistance.

The following story illustrates the effectiveness of this outreach program.

An 80-year old woman made an appointment to meet with our attorney at one of our Senior Center intakes. This was a very conversational, articulate, retired professional woman; but as the conversation progressed, it became apparent that she suffered from at least a minor degree of confusion and memory loss. This made it difficult to piece together what had happened. She was accompanied by her sister who seemed to be the driving force behind the appointment. Our client stated that she had lent various sums of money, totaling over $30,000, to a woman she used to work with, ostensibly to help the woman open a board and care facility. Our client had used the proceeds from a reverse mortgage to make the loans. The woman was not paying her back, and was not responding to calls or letters, and there was no written agreement.

LAS does not handle cases where someone is suing for money, so our attorney referred the client and her sister to Adult Protective Services for further investigation. The worker interviewed our client and her sister and got some more information. She concluded that there was no fraud since our client had agreed to the loans. This ruled out the possibility of prosecution for financial elder abuse. The APS worker then contacted our attorney to discuss what to do. After consultation with other attorneys in the Alameda County legal community, we were able to provide a referral to a litigation attorney who agreed to take the case.

Several weeks later, the attorney called to tell us that she had filed suit against the borrower on behalf of our client. Before the case got to court, the client had received a check for the entire amount loaned, plus interest and attorney fees!

If this client had called our front desk, rather than having a face to face conversation, it is unlikely that we would have been able to help her. Because of her cognitive impairment, which would have been difficult to work with in a telephone conversation, it was very time-consuming to gain an understanding of what had happened, and it is unlikely that the client would have been able to follow up on a referral. A personal interview can be far more effective than a telephone contact in a case like this, especially when the interviewer has experience in dealing with individuals who have some level of mental impairment.

As it worked out, even though we did not directly represent this client, we were able to offer substantial help that led to a completely satisfactory result.