Washington, DC – Mary Alice Jackson, Esq. was honored today as being named as one of the 2012 Fellows of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA). NAELA is a professional association of over 4,200 attorneys who are dedicated to improving the quality of legal services provided to seniors and people with special needs.

NAELA Fellows are attorneys who have been members of the Academy for at least three years, whose careers concentrate on Elder Law, and who have distinguished themselves both by making exceptional contributions to meeting the needs of older Americans and by demonstrating commitment to the Academy. Election as a Fellow signifies that the lawyer is recognized by peers as a model for others, and an exceptional lawyer and leader. The most significant component in the selection process is commitment and contributions to NAELA through committee participation, programs, and leadership.

Mary Alice Jackson, Esq. is a Florida Bar board certified elder law attorney, and is a founding partner at the Sarasota Elder Law Firm Boyer & Jackson, P.A. She is licensed to practice law in both Florida and Texas. Her practice includes special needs and long term care planning, estate planning, probate and end-of-life issues. She is a Preeminent rated attorney by Martindale Hubbell, and has also been named as a Florida Super Lawyers annually since 2006. Mary Alice is a co-author of Planning for the Elderly in Florida, a LexisNexis publication. She presently serves as chair of the Grass Roots Advocacy Committee for the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and on the Board of Directors and public policy committee for the Special Needs Alliance. Mary Alice is a past Chair of the Florida Bar Elder Law Section and served as President of the Sarasota County Bar Association in 2005. She is an adjunct professor in the Stetson University College of Law Elder LL.M. program. Mary Alice and her husband, Bob, reside in Austin, Texas and she telecommutes daily to her Florida office.

About NAELA

Members of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) are attorneys who are experienced and trained in working with the legal problems of aging Americans and individuals of all ages with disabilities. Established in 1987, NAELA is a non-profit association that assists lawyers, bar organizations and others. The mission of NAELA is to establish NAELA members as the premier providers of legal advocacy, guidance and services to enhance the lives of people with special needs and people as they age. NAELA currently has members across the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit NAELA.org.

About Elder and Special Needs Law

Elder and Special Needs Law are specialized areas that involve representing, counseling and assisting seniors, people with disabilities and their families in connection with a variety of legal issues, with a primary emphasis on promoting the highest quality of life for individuals. Typically, Elder Law and Special Needs Law address the convergence of legal needs with the social, psychological, medical and financial needs of individuals. The Elder Law and Special Needs Law attorney handles estate planning and counsels clients about planning for incapacity with health care decision-making documents. The Elder and Special Needs Law attorney also assists clients in planning for possible long-term care needs, including at-home care, assisted living or nursing home care. Locating the appropriate type of care, coordinating public and private resources to finance the cost of care and working to ensure the client’s right to quality care are all part of the Elder and Special Needs Law practice.

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Andrew Boyer: A spotlight on spectacular service
By Hunter W. Carroll

“Pro bono, it is just the right thing to do,” says Sarasota attorney Andrew Boyer. This 2006 Stetson law school graduate has logged several hundreds of hours, generally helping indigent and low-income families navigate the complexities of guardianship, probate, and public benefit issues. Boyer, married and a father of two children, received the pro bono pin last year for performing more than 100 hours of dedicated service. He was also nominated for the YLD Pro Bono Award.

In the past three years, Boyer personally has handled approximately a dozen guardianship cases referred to him by the Legal Aid of Manasota, Inc. Linda Harradine, the Executive Director of that organization, recalls particularly one of those cases, a heart wrenching ordeal involving a young woman, who recently had lost her mother and who was seeking custody of her two younger sisters. “Two young girls are now safely in the custody of their older sister because Mr. Boyer cared enough to take their case,” says Harradine. Boyer continually takes these referrals “with full knowledge of how many hours they consume and the fact that these cases often remain open for many years.” We should all be inspired by Boyer’s dedication.

“Doing well while doing good” is a motto Boyer lives by. He believes that you can give back and help those less fortunate while at the same time balance an active, successful practice and family life. He also believes that the emotional payment when a pro bono client says, “thank you,” after having turned a bad situation into a good situation sometimes is worth more than the money obtaining from a paying client

Boyer learned the importance of pro bono at any early age from his father. Boyer recalls attending a Florida Supreme Court Ceremonial Session when he was 10 with his father who was being honored by the Court for his exemplary pro bono service. The justices allowed Boyer to sit on their bench! During that trip, Boyer’s father explained the importance of helping others, especially when they cannot help themselves. Boyer did not forget this life lesson. Today, he practices with his father and two other attorneys at Boyer & Jackson, P.A., which firm has a tradition of pro bono service.

In addition to accepting cases through Legal Aid of Manasota, he is a leader in the local legal community, emphasizing the importance of pro bono service. Last year, he co-chaired the Manatee Young Lawyers’ project, “Wills for Heroes,” with Manatee YLD member Dana Laganella Gerling. This worthwhile program involved young lawyers in Manatee County writing wills for first responders in the area. Boyer personally checked each will that the volunteer lawyers wrote, ensuring that each was accurate in both form and substance. According to Manatee YLD President Fred Moore, “because of Andy’s substantial efforts at the two Wills for Heroes events, in the past two years, approximately 170 of Manatee County’s first responders and their spouses have been provided wills.” That Manatee YLD project recently spread to the Sarasota YLD, with a slightly different focus. The Sarasota YLD’s “Helping Hands” program, which Boyer was instrumental in bringing to Sarasota, focuses on providing wills and health care directives to employees of the area’s non-profit organizations. Burt Romanoff, President of the Sarasota YLD, said: “the legal communities of Sarasota and Manatee Counties are richer as a result of the selfless work of Andrew Boyer.”

In addition to his passion for pro bono, Boyer serves on the Manatee YLD Board of Directors and serves as Treasurer of the Manatee Aging Network. He is also affiliated with several professional organizations and volunteers with the Florida Supreme Court’s Justice Teaching Project.

Boyer is an inspiration to all attorneys. We should all strive to model ourselves after Boyer’s dedication to pro bono.

Andrew will be honored at the 2012 Pro Bono Awards hosted by Legal Aid of Manasota on April 4, 2012.

Congratulations on this great accomplishment!

By Joseph Brownstein, MyHealthNewsDaily

A cancer drug has succeeded in reversing Alzheimer’s disease in its early stages in mice, according to a new study.

The drug, bexarotene, is designed to reduce levels of amyloid beta, the protein whose presence in the brain has been most closely tied to the development of Alzheimer’s.

In a new study, mice treated with bexarotene saw their amyloid beta levels drop 25 percent within six hours and, importantly, they showed a corresponding improvement in their cognitive function.

“The data we provide here really suggest that Alzheimer’s could be, in the early stages, a reversible disease,” said study author Paige Cramer, a doctoral student in neuroscience at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine.

The researchers used mice that had a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. After the researchers administered varying doses of bexarotene, they measured levels of amyloid beta in the brain and tested the mice for their abilities in maze running, nest building, smell, and fear conditioning, which is a type of learning.

“They did a lot of different tests of learning and memory and they saw an effect on every single one of them,” said Michael Sasner, a research scientist and associate director at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine.

Bexarotene is already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma, a type of skin cancer, and so it may be able to proceed through clinical trials more quickly than drugs not already known to be safe to administer to people.

The study appears in the Feb.10 issue of the journal Science.

A new way to target Alzheimer’s

Sasner, who was not involved with the new study, said it overcomes some of the weaknesses of previous Alzheimer’s work, in which only one or two tests of cognitive improvement were conducted.

Bexarotene is not the first attempted Alzheimer’s treatment to target amyloid beta. But past research has aimed at removing the plaques that amyloid beta can form in the brain, which has not shown any effect on the disease itself.

The difference now, researchers say, is in a better understanding of amyloid beta and the various forms it can exist in. Rather than focusing on the plaques, researchers now think it is the active, soluble form of the protein that is at work in Alzheimer’s.

While there are various views on the causes of Alzheimer’s, “the predominant view right now is that it’s the soluble forms of amyloid beta that are causing the impaired brain function,” Cramer said. “Plaques are just sinks, just tombstones that gather amyloid beta.”

Bexarotene works by promoting the production of another protein, called Apolipoprotein E, which binds to and clears amyloid beta from the brain.

“This paper lends a lot to the mechanism of how ApoE may be involved in Alzheimer’s,” Cramer said.

Hurdles remain

It remains to be seen whether the benefits of bexarotene in mice would translate to humans.

“Because we’re using an FDA-approved drug, this allows us to translate these basic science findings to the clinic; that’s our next goal,” Cramer said.

Figuring out the correct dosing presents another challenge. Researchers found that in one case, giving bexarotene over several doses appeared to be less effective than giving it once. Cramer said the reason may be that the drug degrades itself within the body.

Cramer said she and Gary Landreth, the senior investigator on the study, hope to begin a preliminary trial this year, in which they will look for the same changes in beta amyloid levels in humans. If successful, the testing would move to clinical trials.

Bexarotene is currently sold as Targretin; patents on that drug will expire in April.

“There’s a long way to go to prove this treatment in humans, but it seems like an exciting thing to follow up on,” Sasner said.

Story obtained from: http://vitals.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/09/10365068-cancer-drug-reverses-alzheimers-in-mice

Attorney Edwin M. Boyer and Attorney Mary Alice Jackson have been named 2012 Florida Super Lawyers. Super Lawyers is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The selection process is multi-phased and includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations.

Super Lawyers magazine features the list and profiles of selected attorneys and is distributed to attorneys in the state or region and the ABA-approved law school libraries. Super Lawyers is also published as a special section in leading city and regional magazines across the country according to http://www.superlawyers.com/about/.

Both Edwin and Mary Alice have been selected as Super Lawyers annually since 2006. The Attorney’s and Staff of Boyer & Jackson, P.A. are very proud of this achievement!

Mary Alice Jackson

online at

visit superlawyers.com

Edwin M. Boyer

online at

visit superlawyers.com

Click here to take survey

Carol began her paralegal career in the area of civil litigation and for the last nine years, has worked in the fields of estate planning and probate. She holds the Certified Paralegal designation and has also obtained designation as Florida Certified Paralegal and Florida Registered Paralegal.

Originally from the Midwest, Carol earned her bachelor’s degree at Michigan State University and completed some master’s degree coursework in social work and counseling. Her prior career experience in social work provides her with additional skills and insight in dealing with clients and their families facing end-of-life matters.

A former Master Gardener, she is fond of anything horticultural and actually enjoys digging in her yard. For exercise she runs, and has completed seven marathons in the past ten years. She is looking forward to becoming a grandmother in the near future.

While everyone is pinching pennies and watching the budget, the Social Security Administration announced in April that it had decided to suspend the mailing of annual statements, and make them available online, not just to save money, but to push consumers to use their online site. So, if you look forward to getting those yearly updates what can you do?

The agency began the paper mailings about 20 years ago, sending annual statements to all workers 25 and older, as required by the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation act (OBRA) of 1989, and amended by OBRA 1990. Statements are mailed out each year three months before a worker’s birth month. Currently, about 150 million statements are mailed at a cost of about $70 million a year. Putting the statements online will draw workers to the website and the Agency hopes they will return there should they need information in the future, reducing the number of phone calls and face to face inquiries.

Although online statements are not yet available, the Agency hopes to get them up and running by the end of the year. If they aren’t successful they will resume paper mailings. The process is being held up while the Agency works on making the information accessible to workers, yet confidential and secure. Through the transition period, the website or the local office will be your source of information, although it won’t tell you everything your paper statement did.

Your annual statement gave a lifetime look at your yearly earnings and payroll tax history and has always been a great way to check for any reporting errors. It also gave a breakdown of the benefits you would receive depending on the age you chose to retire, be it 65, 66, or 70, or what you might expect if you filed for disability. And while you can’t get all that information online, you can get some of it and do a lot of other things on the Social Security online portal.

You can apply for a new or replacement social security card (although the application is filled out online you still must personally take it into the office or mail it), apply for disability benefits, apply for Medicare, get forms and publications, and until your online statement is ready, you can use the “Retirement Estimator” to get a good idea of what benefits you would receive if you decide to retire, or apply for disability.

Estimating Your Benefits

You can use the estimator to determine your benefits provided you meet the following criteria:
1. Have enough credits to qualify (you need 40 credits to secure full benefits and currently
earn one credit for every $1,120 earned).
2. Are younger than 62.
3. Haven’t already applied for benefits.
4. Paid in social security taxes.

The Retirement Estimator can be found at www.sss.gov. The site is easy to navigate and has useful links that give you additional information such as choosing a retirement age, and things to consider before applying for benefits. What it won’t show are a breakdown of your yearly earnings and social security tax history.

Some advocates groups are complaining that putting all the information online will prove of little benefit to elders and others who either don’t have access to computers, or don’t have the computer skills to get the information. The agency is betting that the baby boomers won’t have this problem and are even running some commercials starring George Takei (Sulu) of Star Trek fame, and Patty Duke to get folks online and using the site. Due to the poor economy more people are applying for early benefits and applications for disability are on the rise. All this puts a strain on local offices and getting people off the phone and on the website will save time and money.

Along with the “Retirement Estimator”, AARP also has a benefits calculator that does pretty much the same thing if you want to check it out as well. It can be found at www.aarp.org/work.social-security/social-security-benefits-calculator.

If you need this information and can’t access it online you can always visit the local office. However, office hours have changed (effective August 15, 2011) and they now close at 3:30 rather than 4:00. Closing to the public a half-hour early is another cost saving measure as the agency wants to avoid paying overtime to employees finishing up work with those end-of-day visitors.

It isn’t surprising that this is happening given that just recently the Social Security Administration announced its intention to stop mailing out paper checks. Recipients have until March 1, 2013 to make the switch and if they don’t will receive their benefits via a prepaid debit card. As we move to a “paperless” society it’s likely that we can expect more government agencies to move in this direction. Less paper and fewer employees usually mean fewer dollars spent and today, more than ever, that always seems to be the bottom line.