Mental Health Directives in Estate-Planning EngagementsMental Health Directives in Estate-Planning Engagements

As estate-planning professionals, we help clients plan in the event of incapacity, not just death. While clients may come into our offices worried about death and taxes, we educate them that equally worrisome, and sometimes far more legally complicated, is incapacity. We proceed to help them guard against it by using our mainstay advance directives: health care proxies, livings wills and powers of attorney. But are we using all of the advance directives available to us? One often unknown and underutilized directive is the psychiatric advance directive (PAD).  

Why Needed?

PADs are critical because during an acute psychiatric episode, patients lack capacity to give informed consent for treatment. Involuntary treatment laws are designed to s...