Want to Avoid Court? This Might Be a Better Option for Your Family

I would say call an attorney. If you want to call our office, I'm happy to talk with you. But if you can avoid a guardianship and a conservatorship in Arizona with a power of attorney document, or with a trust document, or with something where it gives you control over that family member, it allows you to step into their shoes without involving the courts. That's going to be a more streamlined process. It's going to be more affordable, and it's likely going to preserve the assets of the person that may need that protection.

The sooner you can meet with an attorney to figure out the best way to handle that with a loved one, the better, because you can maybe sidestep a guardianship or a conservatorship with some of these other options that we have for filings. And if you can avoid a guardianship and a conservatorship, you're saving yourself a lot of money: the initial filings, the initial draftings, the appointment of counsel. There's just a lot of upfront costs that can be avoided.

And you don't have the option to avoid that if you DIY it and you file these things and you're already starting a matter in the courts. You can't just turn around and pretend that didn't happen and walk away. You have to kind of close some of those things and move in a different direction.