Career Prospects in the Field of Aging Forum

[potus]

Hi all. I've been working about 4 years right after college with seniors/older adults and while this hasn't been my first career choice, I've built a strong network and contacts within this field and the city that I live in. I've also wanted to go to law school, but trying to evaluate my career options when using my JD to work with the aging population.

Would anyone have suggestions or currently work in the field and may have some guidance?

Thanks very much in advance.

[run26.2]

There is plenty of legal work related to or for older individuals. Doing trusts and estates work, drafting wills are some of the obvious examples. There is also litigation related to elder abuse and healthcare issues. The thing is, you need to make sure your contacts have money to pay your bills and that they're going to be living when your done and have some experience for the network you have now to mean anything. Unless you plan on staying involved during law school, which could be challenging, given the time commitments of school.

[potus]

There is plenty of legal work related to or for older individuals. Doing trusts and estates work, drafting wills are some of the obvious examples. There is also litigation related to elder abuse and healthcare issues. The thing is, you need to make sure your contacts have money to pay your bills and that they're going to be living when your done and have some experience for the network you have now to mean anything. Unless you plan on staying involved during law school, which could be challenging, given the time commitments of school.

Thanks! Yeah, wills and elder abuse are some typical issues that I've been working around here. My contacts are mostly with CBOs, nonprofits, and executives in the field, not so much the clients. Mainly I've been working in government, although I spent half a year in the community.

Thanks very much for your advice.

[RamTitan]

Estate planning is going to be the hot legal field to get into

[Hildegard15]

My first job out of college was working at an Elder Law firm and my boss said that the field is growing so fast that any lawyer who is semi competent will be swamped with work. It's not super lucrative (from what I can remember of my bosses incomes) but it can be very rewarding.