Around October of this year, a book that I recently wrote on the subject of elder law will be published. American Lawyer Media (ALM) will be publishing my book. ALM publishes numerous legal magazines and newspapers. ALM publishes the New Jersey Law Journal, which is the premier legal newspaper in the state of New Jersey. ALM also publishes legal treatises, such as my book.

I have been a lawyer since 1993. Since 2000, I have concentrated my practice in elder law, when I opened my own firm.

Since opening my firm, I have won a variety of awards in the practice of elder law. I am a certified elder law attorney. In all of New Jersey, there are fewer than sixty lawyers who are certified elder law attorneys.

I have been awarded the Super Lawyer Award in elder law four years in a row. This year, I was awarded a Top 100 Award, meaning that of all the lawyers in the state who practice in any field of law (and there are over 80,000 individuals licensed to practice law in New Jersey), I received enough nominations from my fellow attorneys to place me in the top 100 of all lawyers.

I serve on the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA) litigation committee, deciding which cases NAELA, as an organization, will support in order to promote the practice of elder law and the elderly throughout the United States. I recently served as the Chair of the New Jersey State Bar Associations Elder and Disability Law Section.

I have won the New Jersey State Bar Associations Distinguished Service Award in the practice of elder law. Fewer than five people have ever won this award.

I have sued the State on various occasions in federal court and have won more than my fair share of these cases. The cases I have won have changed the face of elder law in this state. In short, had I not won these cases, the practice of elder law in this state would look vastly different than it looks today.

Quite honestly, my accomplishments in the field of elder law exceed what I ever thought I could achieve.

Clients often ask me, Why did you get into this field? The honest answer is, I like older people. I don’t know why that is. My parents had me later in life. Nowadays, my parents age would be completely average, but when I was a kid, my parents were “old.” Other children’s parents were much younger than my parents.

My siblings are a good deal older than me. Most of my cousins are old enough to be my parents. Without psychoanalyzing myself too much, perhaps this is why.

But, in the end, who really cares why. I practice elder law because I like it, and quite frankly, there are few areas of the law that I could imagine myself liking. If I practiced any other area of the law, I’d probably be a terrible lawyer because I would hate what I did for a living. I’d probably hate it so much that I wouldn’t practice law at all.

I was very lucky to find elder law. The practice of elder law has returned to me far more than I could return to it. I can’t say that I go to work every day skipping and whistling a tune, but I do enjoy what I do for a living.

I think my book will explain the primary topics of elder law in a simple manner that will help both the general practitioner and the general public. The subject of elder law garners a tremendous amount of interest from family members who find themselves struggling with issues affecting an elderly family member. My hope is that my book will smooth out some of the confusion that many people experience when dealing with legal issues that commonly affect the elderly.