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Legal Services for the Elderly empowers elderly residents of Mecklenburg County to make their own plans and decisions governing end of life issues, to access public services, and to enable them to retain their property and assets unencumbered by debt and predatory consumer practices.
The program focuses on the following issues:
1) To empower older persons in Mecklenburg County through education and legal representation to be self-sufficient and to have their property unencumbered and their finances protected.
2) To provide estate planning information and document preparation.
2) To prevent and protect older persons from becoming victims of financial exploitation and abuses such as predatory lending and fraud.
3) To improve quality of life for older persons.
Case Work
The program represents residents of Mecklenburg County who are 60 years of age or older regardless of income and assets. The program’s main purpose is to protect the legal rights of low-income elderly persons who are unable to afford legal representation, but does not exclude clients based on income.
Community Outreach
Legal Services for the Elderly conducts community outreach and provides community legal education, including presentations and speaking engagements, to senior citizens and to the staff of other agencies. The project works regularly with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Senior Centers and numerous other senior citizen facilities in the county including Mecklenburg County Council on Aging, North Carolina’s Ombudsman Program and other agencies serving the elderly.
Legal Services for the Elderly relies almost exclusively on the LSSP and Mecklenburg County Bar Volunteer Lawyer Programs to recruit volunteer attorneys to represent clients whose cases have been evaluated and accepted in this program.
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