Guardianships & Conservatorships - Debra Schuster, Esq

Guardianship is a legal process used to protect individuals who are unable to care for their own well-being due to infancy, incapacity or disability. A court will appoint a legal guardian to care for an individual, known as a ward, who is in need of special protection.

Conservatorship is a legal concept whereby a court appoints a person to manage an incapacitated person or minor's financial and personal affairs. The conservator's duties include overseeing finances, establishing and monitoring the physical care of the conservatee or ward, and managing living arrangements.

Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorney Debra K. Schuster breaks these concepts down for us in bite size morsels.

Debra Schuster has practiced Elder and Disability law since 1999, having practiced health law since 1991. Ms. Schuster’s practice focuses on elder law issues, a growing area of law with few experienced practitioners. Ms. Schuster works with and advises social workers, geriatric and care managers, financial planners and accountants, psychiatrists and geriatric physicians about incapacity issues and financial exploitation. Ms. Schuster’s practice focuses on multi-disciplinary collaboration with these professionals to address the complex, myriad age and disability issues her clients face.

Ms. Schuster’s personal experience with her mother and grandfather, both of whom had dementia, has given her insight into the stresses that caregivers and families endure when caring for a loved one with dementia, which led her to become a certified Elder and Adult Mediator. Ms. Schuster assists families with facilitated conversation about difficult end-of-life issues when someone should stop driving, move to assisted living or a skilled nursing facility, delegate financial matters to someone else to high conflict matters involving contested guardianship, financial exploitation and the removal of appointees under Durable Powers of Attorney and trustees.

Ms. Schuster is passionate about volunteering in the community. She is past president of the Breakthrough Coalition, a multidisciplinary group of senior care and disability community providers. She is the past Vice President of Operations for Memory Care Home Solutions, past Board member for Brith Shalom Kneseth Israel, was the Co-chairperson of the BAMSL Elder Law Committee.

Ms. Schuster was a finalist as “Best Lawyer of the Year” in 2016 by St. Louis Magazine and is the “Face of Elder Law” in the June 2017 issue of St. Louis Magazine. Since 2014, Ms. Schuster has been the chairperson of an ad hoc committee of the Missouri Bar Association that has authored proposed legislation for the passage of the Designated Healthcare Decisionmaker Act.