“My dad is a wonderful guy,” said Dr. John Hakim, a cardiologist and one of three children of Arcadius Hakim. “But when his house burned down in 2002 and he married a much younger woman, we as family members got concerned, and were unsure of how to manage him.”
The McLean law firm of Needham Mitnick & Pollack became Arcadius Hakim’s legal guardians and conservators in 2006, something that is not uncommon in Virginia. A guardian is often needed to care for an incapacitated adult, an adult with mental health issues or a senior who has diminished mental capacity. Additionally, in Virginia a conservator is a person appointed by the court to manage the incapacitated adult’s finances and property when they no longer can.
According to Susan Pollack of Needham Mitnick & Pollack, her law firm specializes in these types of cases, and especially in ones that have familial complications or are considered difficult to manage.
Legal guardian and conservatorship matters are billed at the firm’s professional rates, which can be hundreds of dollars per hour. Virginia Code § 64.2-1208 allows any appointed guardian reasonable compensation for services rendered to an incapacitated adult, but there is no specific definition of “reasonable compensation.”.
Fairfax County Circuit Court Commissioner of Accounts John Rust supervises the billing process by these types of law firms in these cases and for the last few years, the Hakim family has been embroiled in litigation that stemmed from findings issued by Rust in 2011 that some of the fees charged to the Hakim estate by NMP were disproportionate.
Now-retired Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Leslie Alden ordered a review of the billings, which was then taken before Judge Randy Bellows. The case may soon finally be decided by the Supreme Court.
“They charged my father’s estate $500 to attend a funeral,” said John Hakim. “In other cases, they were charging his estate $200-$300 an hour just to make a phone call on his behalf.”
But NMP’s attorney Bernard DiMuro says all of the charges for services in the Hakim case were reasonable, and that any non-legal tasks were charged accordingly, and not at professional attorney’s rates.
“When NMP was appointed, there was a specific finding and ruling that it could charge professional rates because of the complexity of the case,” he said. “But non-legal tasks were not charged at professional legal rates.”
Full Article and Source:
Senior Guardianship Regulation at Issue in the Courts
Attorney billing is outrageously excessive, especially in these types of cases.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the contribution of the Virginia Public Guardian and Conservator Advisory Board? On TWO OCCASIONS, the VPGCAB heard from the leader of a Virginia elder law attorney's group, who bemoaned how UNFAIR Mr. Rust's decision was TO THIS FAIRFAX LAW FIRM!!!
ReplyDeleteThat's right, our lazy, corrupt public officials, shameless divas who are paid in excess of two hundred thou a year to oversee the protection of our most vulnerable elderly and disabled, are PARTICIPATING in this financial exploitation, ENCOURAGING this financial exploitation, and when that doesn't work (because the truth ALWAYS comes out), BEMOANING that a couple of rare, honest judicial officers have PUT A STOP to this financial exploitation (at least in this one case, until the beleaguered families give up in exhaustion and penury).
True to form, the Virginia Public Guardian and Conservator Advisory Board REMOVED the minutes of these meetings from the DARS website.
We need a $500 fee cap on the charges of ALL guardians ad litem, whether paid from the court fund or from the estate of the incapacitated person. We need a fee cap (or better yet a strict prohibition) on charges for petitioning attorneys from the estate of the incapacitated person. And we need a cap of no more than 5% of the incapacitated person's estate to guardians and conservators, with minimum thresholds of protected income for the elderly and disabled, who need these funds (funds for which THEY WORKED for decades) to survive.
In the event these despicable attorneys lose an appeal of a reasonable ruling like Mr. Rust's, we need punitive damages and mandatory attorneys fees.
We need to make sure that each and every one of the elderly and disabled who request an attorney GET AN ATTORNEY, BEFORE the court shuffles them off into an unaccountable, dysfunctional, expensive mess of a guardianship.
We need to put a STOP to this circus, in which various attorneys who DO NOT REPRESENT the incapacitated person bilk the estate and the court fund, while THE INCAPACITATED PERSON IS DENIED REPRESENTATION.
We need simple one or two page forms so that the elderly and disabled, their family members, and concerned citizens can petition the court directly for relief from guardianship or for substitution of guardian. Citizens must be able to circumvent this dishonest, unethical endless feedback loop of outrageous over-billing, and communicate the actual circumstances of their day to day lives to the court, without the interference and obstruction of justice caused by these shameless shysters.
We need to reclaim our guardianship process from unethical attorneys, and protect the elderly and disabled, NOW.
This is a huge problem in Virginia. Divorce lawyers and big firms, facing dwindling corporate work, have moved into the guardian and conservator field.
ReplyDeleteThese smug arrogant prima donnas churn their cases and charge more and more outrageous fees for less and less work, with services often of no real value or even to the detriment of the elderly and disabled they purportedly serve.
Instead of simply telling their unethical cronies "no," judges rubber stamp these sky high billings.
Leslie Alden and Jack Rust are two welcome exceptions. And what is the outcome of their rare display of honesty? Just look at the years and years of harassment and additional overcharges their simple act of standing up for the truth has caused.
In a recent CLE, two Northern Virginia attorneys bragged/bemoaned the fact that their efforts in a guardian/conservator case had cost an elderly lady in excess of $500,000!!! This after one of the attorneys, purportedly a guardian ad litem "for" incapacitated people, confessed that she routinely ignored her legal responsibility and DID NOT GET AN ATTORNEY FOR INCAPACITATED PEOPLE WHO REQUESTED AN ATTORNEY "if it wouldn't make any difference in the outcome of the case."
Why? Because, contrary to law, the Supreme Court of Virginia refuses to authorize charges for representation of the incapacitated person and "I don't think you can expect that attorney to work for free."
So, it begs the question. If there is no family and no advocates are involved in the case, who is watching the billing?
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments, Anonymous. They were much better than the article!
ReplyDelete