I'm a retired lawyer - in my very large urban county, the bar association does indeed run a referral service. Let me tell you which lawyers sign up for it - lawyers who are underemployed and desperate for fees. There are no board certification procedures for lawyers to claim specialties - so individual lawyers claim expertise in multiple fields, i.e,. contracts, trusts and estates, family law, criminal law, workmen's compensation, tax law - all from one solo practitioner. When you call the bar association, you just get the next name on their list. And the initial fee may be only $25, but after that these lawyers will draw out, stall and delay -needlessly complicating everything because they bill by the hour.
Would you have your appendix removed by a doctor who advertised he/she was a brain surgeon, urologist, oncologist, dermatologist, internist, obstetrician, gastroenterologist AND tropical disease specialist?
I suggest that you research elder law specialists by googling that topic and then choose one who includes in their ads that he/she serves as an officer in the state association of elder law specialists and/or who teaches that topic in the continuing legal education program run by the lawyers' licensing program in your state.
Good luck to you - it's hard being the only family member who has one's parent's best interests at heart. I was the responsible person for my dear Mom until she died at age 94. I was glad to do it because she was a great Mother, but I still harbor some anger at my spoiled rotten kid brother who always talked a good game about how much he loved my Mom, but somehow his golf game always took precedence - even when I was out of the country and she fell and broke her hip. When it comes to family - it's all about Being There (like that character, Chance the Gardener, played by Peter Sellers).
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