The University of Hawai`i Elder Law Program (UHELP) performs three interrelated functions:
Courses: and Seminars: Several Health and Elder Law Courses and Seminars are open to law students as well as to certain students in the John A. Burns School of Medicine. The Law school courses provide a basic foundation for legal practice with the elderly and within the field of health. Medical school seminars provide a basic legal foundation for doctors in the fields of geriatric medicine, geriatric psychiatry and forensic psychiatry.
Community Service: The Elder Law Direct Legal Services Unit is responsible for direct delivery of legal services to the elderly. It has a full-time staff of a professor-attorney and a paralegal. It operates throughout the calendar year as a law office and has a case load of nearly five hundred cases a year. The unit also provides educational seminars for the elderly, caregivers, service provider agencies and community groups. In addition, UHELP has law student training and public service component. This component focuses most of its energies in serving socially and economically disadvantaged elders on O`ahu with problems involving public entitlements, guardianship and alternatives to guardianship, housing, landlord-tenant, elder abuse, age discrimination, pension and retirement problems, planning for incapacity and death, consumer protection, medical treatment, long-term-care insurance and family law. It also provides education, training and publications for older persons, service providers, law and health care professionals as well as research on elder law issues.
Law Student Public Service (Pro Bono): UHELP provides the infrastructure and oversight for the law student pro bono graduation requirement. The Pro Bono Program at the William S. Richardson School of Law was one of the first law school pro bono programs in the nation and is thought to be the first student-initiated mandatory program in the nation. Students are required to locate and to provide law-related pro bono work under the supervision of an attorney, law school faculty or dean, or other supervisor, as approved by the Pro Bono Program Director who is the director of UHELP.
The UHELP staff has produced numerous publications, including the Elder Law Hawai`i Handbook, Deciding "What If" A Legal Handbook for Hawaii's Caregivers, Families and Older Persons, and The Akamai Kupuna.
Funding for UHELP is provided by the University of Hawai`i William S. Richardson School of Law, the Elderly Affairs Division of the City and County of Honolulu (under Title III of the Older Americans Act), the State of Hawai`i Judiciary, the Hawai`i Bar Foundation and through donations.
The program supervisor is Professor James Pietsch. He was the staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Hawai`i Elder Law Unit for ten years prior to assuming his position at the law school in 1991. He also has an appointment as an adjunct professor at the John A. Burns School of Medicine.
Lenora Lee is the program administrator/paralegal. She is a graduate of the Kapi`olani Community College Legal Assistant Program, was a paralegal at the Legal Aid Society of Hawai`i for over 10 years where she served in both the family law unit and the elder law unit. In addition to her experience as a paralegal, she has a teaching certificate in secondary education, a Masters Degree in Political Science from the University of Hawai`i, and a Masters of Business Administration from Chaminade University.
UHELP is proud that the namesake of the law school, Retired Chief Justice William S. Richardson has his office at UHELP where he is in residence and where he continues to share his wisdom and experience with faculty, law students and our elderly clients.
Contact Information:
University of Hawai`i Elder Law Program
William S. Richardson School of Law
2515 Dole Street
Honolulu, HI 96822
Telephone: 808-956-6544
FAX: 808-9439
E-Mail: UHELP@hawaii.edu
For more information about UHELP go to www.hawaii.edu/uhelp
