Читать книгу Powers of Attorney - Martin Shenkman - Страница 14

The best way for us to explain how the Internet power of attorney works is to create one. So we did exactly that. We searched “power of attorney form.” Rocket Lawyer popped up at the top of the search for paid advertised links and as number four on the general search.

We expected to find an overly simplistic document that would not address many of the basic issues. And in fact there are plenty superficial and overly simplistic forms on the Internet. But what we found on Rocket Lawyer was a rather comprehensive form, one that is more detailed then what we’ve seen many attorneys use. If the user is sufficiently knowledgeable, this could be a pretty powerful option. What is worrisome, however, is that for a layperson, this level of choice and detail is not only overwhelming, but likely will provide more opportunity to do harm. The layers of decision were anything but simple.

If we were preparing a form for consumers to use without the benefit of an attorney spending the time to really understand and address your personal situation, which is what will happen if you meet with an estate planner, we would opt to keep the decisions far more limited and the form more standardized. We would try to help you identify when you need to really get help, and when the more standardized form might be viable for you. We found the opposite.

The “free” document eventually costs about $50.

The webpage the link goes to, https://www.rocketlawyer.com/form/power-of-attorney.rl, provided the following summary (June 25, 2014):

A Power of Attorney may be either general or specific. A General Power of Attorney gives the Agent broad authority to act for you. A Special Power of Attorney grants the Agent limited authority to act only in specified situations. In addition, you may create a “Durable” Power of Attorney, which means it will remain in effect even if you become incompetent or incapable of handling your affairs. If you do not want the Power of Attorney to remain in effect during these times, then the document can be made “non-durable.”

This information is a bit worrisome and dangerous for consumers. Almost all lawyer-prepared powers of attorney are broad or “general” powers. A general power of attorney gives the agent the authority to handle almost any type of legal, financial, or tax matter that may arise. The point of a power of attorney is almost always to empower someone to act on your behalf in the event of some future unknown emergency. Because the nature of that future emergency cannot be known, the approach almost every attorney takes is to make the power of attorney a broad, all-encompassing document.

The most common future unknown is your being disabled. So why create a power that is not “durable” and will be useless during the prime emergency you were creating it for. It would be the equivalent of buying a generator for your home that won’t work if the power outage is caused by a storm. Yet the quoted introduction, in our view, puts you in the position of misunderstanding the most fundamental principles of powers of attorney. Even if later instructions encourage you to chat or ask questions, are you likely to do so? Will you really understand this essential nuance?

In contrast, the Legalzoom website provides the following introduction:

A power of attorney lets you appoint someone you trust to handle important financial and legal matters on your behalf either immediately or only if you are unable to make decisions for yourself.

While this is a pretty good description, will using their forms be better than a free state statutory form? Will an intelligent consumer be able to discern the important nuances in what to do?

While the Rocket Lawyer form was impressively comprehensive, and the prompts to input data and make decisions well done and easy to navigate, the “help” explanations provided were sometimes not relevant, and too often dangerously inadequate. In Rocket Lawyer’s defense, consumers completing a power of attorney might not be willing to read pages of discussion about the legal nuances of what to do with a particular provision if they provided it. But that is the gist of the problem. Many of the decisions you have to make to complete your power of attorney can have a profound impact on the future use of the document and whether it will really serve your purposes.