Guardianship Lawyer Fort Wayne

How to Protect Your Loved One

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One of life’s most stressful and emotional moments is when your parent or other relative loses the ability to take care of themselves.

You want to see the people you love protected—from abusers, scammers, caregivers falling short of their duties, and your loved one’s own declining ability to make good decisions.

It’s time to consider a guardianship. A court must approve it. Guardianships are legal arrangements allowing you or another trusted person to be a caregiver, and sometimes financial manager, of a vulnerable person.

You can’t just sign up for a guardianship. A person’s well-being depends on it. Guardianships require extensive legal work.

Because it’s complex, courts prefer to see people represented by a guardianship lawyer.
Contested guardianships—disagreements over who should be the guardian or whether a guardian is needed at all—are even more complicated.
Guardianship attorneys also help when you need to change guardians because a guardian died, stepped down from the role, or didn’t fulfill the responsibilities.

Fletcher Van Gilder guardianship lawyers in Fort Wayne are here to support Northeast Indiana families. Let us help you gain the confidence of knowing your loved one is protected.

Many people come to us for help with guardianships after they or someone they know worked with us on Social Security Disability, estate planning, personal injury, or other kinds of cases.

Other attorneys send FVG guardianship cases. So do doctors and other service providers. Our lawyers have a combined 205 years of professional experience.

Talk to us about establishing guardianship in Indiana.

People Our Fort Wayne Guardianship Attorneys Help

These are common circumstances you might bring to the guardianship lawyers at Fletcher Van Gilder in Fort Wayne:

Your older parent, grandparent, or other family member can no longer take care of themselves or manage their personal business and needs a trusted guardian.
You have an adult child with disabilities who needs support.
A minor child in your family needs a guardian after the deaths of their parents or the inability of their parents to care for them.
Your family needs someone to serve as a temporary guardian because of a short-term change in the availability of a caretaker or because of emergency circumstances.

Guardianships differ from “power of attorney.” They’re different from caregiver documents you might have signed with agencies like the Indiana Department of Child Services.

Those arrangements don’t mean you are a legal guardian. Make sure that the guardianship protections your family needs are in full force by consulting with a lawyer.

The Fletcher Van Gilder guardianship attorneys have wide-ranging knowledge of legal issues facing families of people in need of care, including getting “disabled adult child” disability benefits from Social Security, establishing wills and trusts and handling child custody issues.

Talk to us about the steps you can take to secure the legal needs of a loved one who is incapacitated.

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Types of Guardianships in Indiana

Guardianships in Indiana come in several forms depending on your family’s situation:

Guardian of the person. This is someone who takes care of the day-to-day living and well-being of the protected person.
Guardian of the estate. This person manages the incapacitated person’s finances.
Guardian of the person and estate. Someone who supervises both parts of the person’s life.
Guardian ad litem. This is when a court appoints someone, often a lawyer, to represent a protected person in specific legal proceedings. It ends once the business at hand is complete.

Courts must make two major decisions in guardianship cases: whether someone truly needs a guardian, and who that guardian should be.

Of all the decisions courts make, these decisions have some of the greatest personal impacts on individuals.

It’s vital for everything in the guardianship process to be done correctly.

And it’s absolutely best when your guardianship attorney has both extensive experience and a caring approach to your case.

At Fletcher Van Gilder, our attorneys are all about providing personal attention to your legal needs, being accessible, and supporting our neighbors in Forth Wayne and across Northeast Indiana.

Get the best for your family. For an adult or minor guardianship in Indiana, contact our guardianship lawyers.

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Fletcher Van Gilder is a general practice law firm in Fort Wayne where your lawyer is your partner in protecting your rights, securing your future, and achieving your goals. We’re here for you every day, easy to reach, easy to talk to, easy to work with.

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