No clear healthcare decision-maker
A spouse or family member may know your wishes but still need legal proof of authority. Parents of an adult child should not assume they retain access or standing after age 18.
Keep your voice in the room, even when you cannot speak
For adults who want trusted people to have clear healthcare authority and documented wishes if illness, injury, or a medical emergency leaves them unable to communicate.
Knowing your wishes is not the same as having authority
A spouse, parent, or other relative may understand what you want and still lack the legal authority to speak for you. That matters for young adults too: parents lose automatic standing once a child turns 18.
Without advance directives, a medical crisis may leave the people you love trying to prove who can decide while also guessing what you would have chosen.
What a family may face without advance directives
A crisis becomes a family debate
Stress changes memories. Relatives may interpret past conversations differently, hold different beliefs, and leave one person carrying difficult decisions without clear direction.
Healthcare and the rest of life fall out of step
Healthcare authority is separate from authority over finances, contracts, property, or a business. Without coordinated incapacity planning, urgent responsibilities may remain unsettled.
What advance directives can clarify
Who may speak for you
A healthcare surrogate designation names someone you trust completely: someone who understands your values, stays calm, respects wishes different from their own, communicates with providers and family, and is willing to serve. Suitable alternates matter when a first choice is unavailable.
What you want known
A living will records medical-care wishes for circumstances covered by the document and applicable law. It cannot predict every medical event, but it can give your surrogate and family clearer direction.
How the plan stays usable
Talking with the people you name, telling them where the documents are, coordinating powers of attorney and any business-continuity planning, and reviewing the plan after life changes may make it more useful in a crisis.
You should not have to plan for every medical possibility
It can be difficult to imagine incapacity, choose the right person, or explain wishes that may differ from someone else's. The firm begins with what matters to you and the people who may need to act.
The Estate Practice helps you consider a healthcare surrogate, living will, and alternates, then connects those decisions to the separate authority needed for financial, legal, property, or business matters. The conversation accounts for your circumstances, whether you are married, a young adult, supporting a family, or responsible for a business.
Get startedThree steps toward clearer healthcare decisions
You do not need to predict every circumstance. Start with who you trust, what matters to you, and how the documents should fit the rest of your plan.
- 1
Schedule a consultation
Bring your questions and any existing advance directives or estate-planning documents. You do not need a perfectly organized binder to begin.
- 2
Choose the people and document your wishes
Consider a healthcare surrogate who understands your values, can stay calm and communicate, will respect your decisions, and is willing to serve. Name suitable alternates and record applicable medical-care wishes in a living will.
- 3
Talk, coordinate, and review
Tell the people you chose and where the documents are. Coordinate separate powers of attorney and, for business owners, continuity planning. Review after marriage or divorce, a death or relationship change, a significant health event, a move, changed wishes, a chosen person's inability or unwillingness to serve, or a wider estate-plan update.
Your wishes are documented, and the right people know their role
Your healthcare surrogate and alternates understand what matters to you, your living will gives direction for applicable circumstances, and the documents can be found when they are needed. Related financial, legal, property, and business responsibilities have been considered separately.
Without that preparation, the people closest to you may face a crisis with love and good intentions, but no clear authority or shared direction.
Make the decisions while they are yours to make
You do not need every answer before speaking with us. Begin with who you trust and what you want them to know.