Uses a client-centered approach to develop skills in using active listening, dealing with difficult clients, building questioning techniques, developing theories, identifying alternatives and consequences, and engendering client decision-making.

​This course provides an introduction to practical topics in estate and financial planning, including advance directives for financial management and health care decisions, long term care planning, revocable living trusts and retirement plans. In lieu of an examination, Financial Planning for the Elderly involves a project. Students form teams of two and three (though it is permissible to work alone) and prepare a plan for a hypothetical single person, taking into account all relevant gift and income tax and non-tax factors. The project includes draft documents and an explanatory cover letter to the hypothetical client. This course is designed to provide an experience transferable to practice.

Prerequisite: Trusts and Estates

The number of elderly Americans is projected to increase significantly over the next few decades. Life expectancy is still increasing; the economy and job growth are sluggish; millions of Americans lack adequate health insurance; health care costs are rising at a rate far higher than the general inflation rate; and the Administration and state governments are attempting to implement the Affordable Care Act in the face of budgetary constraints and implacable opposition from certain groups.

The course will cover:

1.      Federal pension law under ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code;

2.      Social Security and Medicare coverage and benefits, including policy and financial issues; and

3.      The major new rules under the Affordable Care Act relating to access to health care, how health care is provided and financed, patient protections, employer-provided benefits and quality improvement.

​Provides exposure to technical skills needed to represent clients successfully in estate matters. Emphasizes procedural aspects of estate work and precise methodology to present the client's case, as petitioner or objectant.