Ken Bennett was having a typical day at his business-related litigation law practice when he was asked to look into the legal needs of an elderly woman named Grace. Her husband and son had both died before her, so Grace lived alone in a third-floor walk-up apartment in a low-income neighborhood on the east side of Indianapolis. To her friends at a nearby church, Grace had seemed a little less sharp lately and a little more remote, so they asked Bennett to speak with her.
He met with Grace a few times to discuss her needs and noticed some decline even between the visits. Then he received a call from one of her friends saying Grace had not come to church in awhile and had not responded to phone calls. The friend was too frail herself to walk up the three flights of stairs to Grace’s apartment, so she asked if Bennett could use her key to check on her friend.
No one answered the door, so Bennett let himself in. The apartment was in a state of disarray, with clothes and food strewn about. Bennett was stunned to see human feces on the floor of the living room. He called out for Grace, but received no answer. Then he walked into the bedroom to see the woman lying on a bed soaked in urine. His first thought was that she was dead, but Grace responded when he gently shook her shoulder. She did not seem to recognize Bennett, but she did not object when he said, “Grace, you are coming with me.”
He gathered the confused woman in his arms and began carrying her down the stairs, heading for the hospital. Bennett remembers well the thoughts that raced through his head. “At first, I was just angry,” he recalls. “How could things have gotten this bad for her? How could society have let this happen? Why hadn’t somebody done something?
“Then I realized it—I was the somebody who was supposed to be doing something about this, and not just for Grace.”
Bennett, who lives in Indianapolis with his wife Margaret and children Cy and Grace, traces the source of that recognition back to his time at Wabash, where most classmates knew him as “H.K.” He can rattle off a list of faculty and staff, mostly political science and history professors, who influenced him—David Hadley, Melissa Butler H’85, Phil Mikesell ’63, Peter Frederick H’92, Horace Turner H’76 —after he came to campus from his home-town of Zionsville, IN.
“They impressed on me the responsibility of a Wabash graduate to give back. The message I heard was, ‘If you are going to be a lawyer, great. Be a lawyer who changes things for the better.’”
Balancing Independence and Safety
In the 20-plus years since he carried Grace out of her fetid apartment and subsequently obtained a legal guardianship for her care, Bennett has become a widely respected elder law attorney. He has represented hundreds of clients and families facing the issues of aging, edited and written for national elder law publications, and delivered presentations to attorneys across the country on guardianships, nursing home litigation, and other elder law topics. He recently founded the Center for At-Risk Elders, CARE, a not-for-profit public-interest law firm dedicated to responding to the needs of Indiana elders who are in jeopardy of being neglected, abused, or exploited. CARE assists families, courts, and other not-for-profit groups that are working to establish legal guar-dianships when needed.
“Unfortunately, there is so much abuse and neglect of our elder population, including self-neglect, going on right now,” Bennett says. “We already have an inadequate response to the current situation, and the challenge is only going to be greater with the demographic trend of the baby boomers getting older.
“Attorneys have a critical role to play, not necessarily as the guardians ourselves—social workers and geriatric case managers are often better qualified to do that when a family member is not able to serve—but to provide the legal advice and advocacy necessary to get the proper protections in place.”
Nurse practitioner Jane Malkoff, who operates her own Indianapolis business providing geriatric care management, says CARE is a desperately needed response to a growing problem.
“I can’t tell you how excited I was when I heard Ken was starting this organization,” Malkoff says. “I keep running out of his business cards, because I am constantly being asked for them by doctors, social workers, family members, and all kinds of people who see elders in need of services, but are not sure how to address it. For so long, there was nobody to call. Thank goodness, now there is.”
Unlike most states, Indiana does not have a statewide program to respond to the civil legal needs of vulnerable elders and their families. Indiana’s Adult Protective Services program is mandated by federal law but is structured as a criminal-justice institution. Advocates for seniors agree the agency is overburdened with the criminal complaints it receives.
“There is just no organized system in Indiana for dealing with the plight of elders who are vulnerable as a result of their health, finances, or dysfunctional family structures,” says Scott Severns, a central Indiana attorney who is a founding member and past president of the National Association of Elder Law Attorneys. “There is a big hole there, and I am excited CARE is seeking to fill it.”
Bennett, the former chair of the United Senior Action Foundation and past president of the Alzheimer’s Association Central Indiana Chapter, is the perfect leader for the new organization, Malkoff says. “I have worked with Ken on many cases over the years, and he always acts with the utmost integrity and passion,” she says. “It is very, very important that elders get the care they need but are also respected as persons with their independence preserved as much as safety allows. Ken gets that big picture, and his clients always know they are part of the decision-making process and that their best interests come first.”
Severns, who practiced with Bennett for several years, agrees: “Ken maintains that sensitive balance of being a protector but also being respectful of the person’s autonomy.”
Golden Rule Lawyering
The Census Bureau estimates that the U.S. population over 65 will double between 2008 and 2050, and seniors are already disproportionately at risk of theft by fraud.
“The older segment of our population is where most of the wealth resides,” Bennett says. “You combine that with the fact that some elders cannot adequately protect their own interests, and they make obvious targets for financial exploitation.”
Recently, Bennett was contacted by neighbors of a woman who they feared was losing her ability to manage her own finances. Betty had been an accountant in her professional life, and like many elders with above-average intelligence and education, she was able to mask her decline for quite some time. But her judgment had become impaired to the point where she fell prey to one of the ubiquitous e-mail scams that convinced her she was on the path to a multimillion-dollar payday—if only she could keep sending thousands of dollars in “processing fees.” By the time Bennett could intervene to stop the scam, Betty had lost virtually her entire life savings. CARE was created, Bennett says, so that legal help can be available for others before they are victimized like Betty was.
“My first life as a lawyer involved a lot of hubris, to be frank,” he says. “But in my second life as a lawyer, working in elder law, I feel like I have been returning to the lessons my parents and teachers, especially the Wabash professors, taught me. It may sound corny, but I really do try to embrace the mission of Wabash—to think critically, act responsibly, lead effectively, and live humanely.”
Bennett sees CARE developing into an organization that defines and embodies the best practices for legal handling of guar-dianships, and leading the discussion at legislative and policy levels where the law will be shaped to address both social concerns and the rights of each individual.
“There are a lot of complicated legal issues to be sorted out in this process,” he says. “But the Golden Rule is really the most appropriate guide of all: You are going to be old one day; so how would you like to be treated?”
Contact Ken Bennett at ken@hkbennettlaw.com
Fran Quigley is a clinical professor at IU School of Law–Indianapolis, and a board member of the Center for At-Risk Elders.
