It’s been a pretty wild couple months.

First things got bad. Then they got better. Now they look like they’re getting bad again.

We are continuing to serve our clients and the public throughout this pandemic. If you need legal services regarding a will, power of attorney, healthcare directive, guardianship, nursing homes and long term care, Medicaid, special needs trust, etc., we are here to help. But we also are taking precautions to keep our clients safe.

We have been meeting with clients outdoors on our covered porch throughout the summer and early fall. The furniture is set up so that our clients are sitting more than six feet apart from us during meetings.

We also have been doing meetings via phone and Zoom video chat. As the weather gets colder, we will likely transition to more of these virtual meetings, and fewer in-person meetings.

Some things we need to do in-person, such as will signings. For wills, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, special needs trusts and other estate documents, we try to meet with our clients in person so we can witness their signatures and notarize the documents.

We’ve been doing these signings outdoors, but when it gets truly cold out, we likely will switch to “drive-by” signings. This means we would review the documents in advance by phone or Zoom, and have clients drive up and stay in their cars, sign in their cars, and pass the documents through the window for us to sign during a brief meeting in our parking area.

This is an approach some of our colleagues took early in the pandemic. We believe this approach is sensible because, with clients staying in their cars, it allows us to continue serving our clients with will signings, while maintaining a reasonably high degree of safety and comfort, regardless of how cold it gets, how bad the pandemic gets, or any lockdowns or other restrictions put in place.

We will continue to follow the latest state requirements and medical guidance to keep our community safe, and we will continue to serve our clients.