Finding a Professional Guardian

Posted Friday, August 29, 2014 by John S. Palmer

In my guardianship practice, I occasionally have clients who have waited months, even years, to seek a guardian for an incapacitated loved one because there was no friend or family member willing and able to fill that role. While appointing a professional guardian may be a solution, clients are often unaware of how to go about finding or choosing one.

A good place to start is the website for Washington’s Certified Professional Guardian Program, which has a wealth of information about all professional guardians in the state. For example, consumers can search for certified guardians, by name or county, through the search function available on its home page, which also contains a link to information about disciplinary proceedings against both individual guardians and guardianship agencies. There is also a guide to filing a grievance against a particular guardian or agency and information on various rules and regulations, including the standards of practice for professional guardians.

The administrative process established for disciplining professional guardians recently withstood a constitutional challenge brought by a professional guardian who claimed that vesting the Certified Professional Guardianship Board with rule making authority and the ability to investigate, prosecute and discipline alleged violations violated the separation of powers doctrine; the guardian also claimed that a 2011 decision by the Board lowering the burden of proof required to establish misconduct violated her constitutionally-protected property interest in continued certification. In my next blog post, I will take a closer look at the State Supreme Court decision rejecting these claims.

If you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment, please call us at (425) 455-5513, toll free at (877) 455-5513, or info@palmerlegal.com.