Connecticut probate administrator: New checks in place to ensure conservators’ honesty

Paul Knierim (Shana Sureck)

When Bristol attorney Jodi Zils-Gagne swindled more than $100,000 from elderly and infirm clients, she hurt more than those people and their survivors, U.S. District Court Judge Vanessa Bryant said last month.

The public’s faith in the legal system was “a silent victim,” Bryant said at a hearing.

To Probate Court Administrator Paul Knierim, that’s a particularly sad outcome — and one that he’d like to remedy.

“There are 22,000 people with conservators in Connecticut, and it’s important to emphasize that the vast, vast majority majority of those conservators are trying their level best to do everything right in a challenging circumstance,” Knierim said.

“And they’re doing it as volunteers or, if they’re being paid, their compensation is well below what would be the normal professional hourly rate,” he said.

The state adopted new training and oversight procedures for lawyers and others who serve as conservators, and Knierim said the public should know they’re working. One, a system of random audits to catch cheats, just got under way last fall.

Knierim’s job is to oversee Connecticut’s probate courts, which are most widely known for handling will and estate settlements after a death.

But they’re also in charge of helping residents who need someone to handle their affairs - typically very elderly or infirm people who can no longer keep up with planning their own living arrangements or handling their finances. It is in those cases where trust in the court-appointed conservators is particularly important, Knierim said.

Probate courts appoint conservators to handle the person’s financial and business affairs and, in some cases, even oversee their health care planning. Conservators are frequently relatives who do the service for free, or may be attorneys - such as Zils-Gagne - who are paid a modest monthly fee from the client’s funds.

In her plea deal with prosecutors, Zils-Gagne conceded that she had overbilled clients, engaged in self dealing and “knowingly and willfully misappropriated conserved persons’ money and property." She also admitted concealing the facts from the probate court.

Knierim would not address individual cases, but wrongdoing by conservators does a terrible disservice to their colleagues as well as their clients.

"And when it’s a lawyer, it’s especially devastating because it involves someone with the ethical obligations of an attorney abusing their position of trust," he said.

The probate court has beefed up its advisory system for guiding conservators when they approach it with questions about potential conflicts of interest or other ethical issues. Two years ago, the state also instituted a system to check on their work.

The court has a periodic financial reporting requirement for conservators to disclose how they’ve handled the client’s finance, and the system an opportunity to notify the court if they suspect misdealing.

“Then in 2017 we sought legislation that authorizes my office to do random audits of conservator’s financial reports,” he said. “The audits look behind the numbers and verify they’re accurate.”

It’s a random system that, because of the expense, audits are only a fraction of cases. But Knierim said it started operating last fall and his is confident it will further encourage honesty by conservators.

“This is very much geared toward rooting out situations where a person is lying to the court,” he said. “As of the fall of 2018, that program is off and running.”

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Connecticut probate administrator: New checks in place to ensure conservators’ honesty