What is the difference in choosing an Elder care lawyer and an Estate Lawyer?

My understanding is estate lawyers deal with assets and such. Elder law attorneys are necessary when there are conflicts about what is best for elder, help with placement, do Medicaid planning, etc.

This would be an excellent question to ask the attorneys. If you want to I suggest you google AVVO and pose the question. You will receive answers from lawyers. Please come back and let us know what you found out.

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Gladinhere - yes, AVVO is a great resource.

For my mom, we used an estate attorney. This was well over a decade ago and before "elder law" became a speciality. He was good and had things done - like a "Guardianship in Case of Incapacity" - which most attorneys probably wouldn't know to do but his experience with elderly had this be part of his set of paperwork. He also did a codicil to mom's will to freshen it to reflect changes from when my parents did their wills back in the 1980's and had insurance ownerships changed. All things that now an elder law attorney would advise to do.

The problem is that there aren't all that many NAELA certified elder law attorney's out there. If you live in a small town, there won't be one. So a good estate attorney is the next best thing and most of these also do probate, so you have that relationship in place for after death.