Attorney Lois Zerrer resumes solo practice

Rebecca Pruitt, with whom Zerrer founded Zerrer & Pruitt LLC in January 2002, left Springfield in December to work for Illinois’ attorney general’s office and to reunite with family.

Zerrer continues to practice elder law, doing business as Zerrer Elder Law Office LLC at 1147 E. Walnut St.

Zerrer said that she’s been busy in recent weeks helping clients with durable powers of attorney for health-care decisions – the need for which has been punctuated of late by media coverage of the final days and death of Florida woman Terri Schiavo. Schiavo died March 31 after 15 years in what doctors called a persistent vegetative state.

At the heart of the case was a bitter battle between Schiavo’s husband, Michael, and her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler. Michael Schiavo fought for and won permission to have his wife’s feeding tube removed, an action her parents protested.

Terri Schiavo had left no written instructions on which option she would choose.

“The Terri Schiavo thing really has made people stop and think about this stuff,” Zerrer said. “People (are) saying, ‘I don’t want to be like (Terri Schiavo). I want to have my affairs in order … so that everybody knows.’ I think that’s everybody’s worst nightmare.”

During the same time that Schiavo was in the news, the Missouri Bar Association’s Web site, www.mobar.org recorded an unusually high 13,130 page views of a free downloadable form for durable power of attorney for health care and health care directives – but interest hasn’t stopped there. Jack Wax, director of media relations for the Missouri Bar, said that in the first couple of weeks after Schiavo’s death, there were close to 30,000 visits for the free downloadable forms, and several thousand are being printed in the organization’s print shop.

Zerrer said there are different powers of attorney – one for financial concerns and one for health-care decisions.

“I do them separately because the people at the hospital don’t need to know what you’re thinking about your finances, and the people at the bank don’t need to know anything about your health-care issues,” Zerrer said. “And they’re really two very different types of documents, functionally.”

Zerrer also helps clients deal with estate planning, probate, wills, trusts, nursing homes, Medicare, Medicaid and other public benefits.

Zerrer is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, which in May is celebrating National Elder Law Month. According to NAELA, statistics show that by 2030, the population is projected to have 71.5 million older citizens.

According to a position statement on its Web site, www.naela.org, the organization advocates simple and readily available proxies for appointing agents to make health-care decisions in the event of incapacity. It also supports the right of competent individuals to make their own health care decisions.

Zerrer said that for individuals to execute powers of attorney, they must be competent and still have the capacity for such decisions. For some of her clients, though, particularly those with dementia or Alzheimer’s, guardianships are necessary.

“If a person’s competent, they can do a power of attorney. If they’re not, then we’ll need to go the guardianship route,” she said. “Either spouses or children come in and have guardianships done.”

Zerrer charges $25 to put together a power of attorney for health care document. The documents also can be found free of charge at libraries and hospitals, she said.

Zerrer gives seminars and presentations for local churches and organizations about elder law issues.

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