CLA op-ed advises caution with conservatorships

Community Legal Aid senior supervising attorney Rachel Shannon Brown and pro bono director Meredith Palmer penned a recent op-ed in the Worcester Telegram explaining the implications of conservatorships, guardianships, durable powers of attorney, and health care proxies.

“If anything can be learned from Britney Spears’ legal woes, it’s that we should be choosing, in advance, who we want to help us if a court thinks we can’t make decisions for ourselves,” Brown and Palmer write.

Recent media stories have shared that Spears’ father and at least one other person had been permitted by California courts to make decisions about her day-to-day personal care, finances, medical treatment and work activities, leaving her with little to no control over her own life. Massachusetts has similar processes under its probate and family court system to appoint someone to make decisions for another person.

Read more at the Telegram & Gazette.