As summer draws to a close, we wish to welcome you to another exciting year for the Hillsborough County Bar Association Elder Law Section. As co-chairs of the Elder Law Section this year, we wish to thank Jack Rosenkranz for the tremendous effort put forth by him resurrecting the Elder Law Section last year. He did a terrific job of lining up informative speakers who provided relevant and timely information.
We thank Jack for his efforts, and this year, we plan to continue providing you with exciting speakers who will address a number of topics that are near and dear to us as elder law attorneys. Elder law attorney Rebecca Bell will provide us with an update on Medicaid Managed Care implementation in Florida. Travis Finchum, a co-trustee of Guardian Pooled Trust, will present on the topic of special needs trusts and lesser-understood Medicaid programs such as QI-1, SLMB, and QMB. Dale Smrekar, a certified appraiser, will speak to us concerning probate estate appraisal and liquidation. Other speakers and topics we are lining up include a nursing home long-term care ombudsman to discuss rights and remedies available for nursing home residents; professors from Stetson Law School to address VA benefits update and advocacy skills in the administrative hearing context; an expert in Medicare benefits to speak on important information that all elder law attorneys should know; and past chair Jack Rosenkranz to provide tips and tricks for innovative elder law researching options.
In addition to informative speakers and the opportunity to obtain continuing legal education credits, the section meetings also provide a unique opportunity to discuss your difficult cases with other elder law attorneys and talk about recent and anticipated changes in rules and federal and state laws.
We welcome suggestions for speakers or topics, and we also welcome submission of articles for publication in the Lawyer magazine. We appreciate your ideas and your participation. Please watch for upcoming announcements regarding the dates of our luncheon meetings and topics. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m. before each meeting, with luncheons beginning at noon. All luncheons will be held in the Chester H. Ferguson Law Center, 1610 N. Tampa St., Tampa FL 33602.
So please join us at our meetings, and if you have suggestions, please feel free to contact Elizabeth Allen at eallen@gibbelder.com or (813) 877-9222, or Debra L. Dandar at Debra.Dandar@TampaBayElderLawCenter.com or (813) 282-3390. We look forward to working with you to make 2014-2015 another outstanding year for the Elder Law Section.
