If you are looking for a law firm where they have no problem changing the will of a 90 year old man…read morewith dementia who could not drive, name the town he lives in or remember the names of ANY of his family members, this is the law firm for you! Then upon your loved ones death, you will find out what Hell really is. There are no words for my experience with Kathy Cleere. Except maybe nightmare. For me and my siblings.

A strong warning to any potential clients diagnosed with Alzheimer's and dementia - avoid this…read morepractice AT ALL COSTS. Kathy Cleere is adept at working with unscrupulous elder law attorneys in the Tucson / Oro Valley area where the demographics ensure that there will be a constant stream of opportunities to exploit the law and medical practice, whilst ensuring a steady stream of income. As the trustee of an Arizona Trust, I have encountered nothing but obstruction obtaining legal notes, billing records and administrative practice documents. Ms Cleere has certainly evolved her practice and professional affiliations so as to find that ambiguity in understanding what the law has to say about legal and medical understanding of a patient given a diagnosis of dementia. When the person at the center of the trust was diagnosed at the University of Arizona medical center documenting that she didn't even understand what power of attorney was - this attorney claimed otherwise and wrote and re wrote a boilerplate estate planning document for no other purpose than to add additional complications to an already enforceable plan drafted prior to a retirement in Arizona. The costs of this unnecessary legal work is an opportunity to undo prior estate planning - and where family or medical dysfunction exists - the chance to earn revenue appears tantalising. trust me, an attorney with a high degree of ethical sensibilities will decline to act. Be mindful that in the United States, when someone retires in a traditional retirement oriented community - revisionist legal work will be more than an inconvenience. This practice exploited the idea that a person with documented cognitive decline is really capable of being in control of her life and legal / financial / guardianship decisions. In other words, for sufficient renumeration, she is willing to offer opinions that increase or obfuscate a familial situation for gain. How else to explain when, during the course of trust administration, she steadfastly refuses to comply with lawful directives of the grantor of a trust AND entreaties to act ethically under the legal licensing laws of Arizona. This is a 'family law' practice involving at least three generations of the Cleere family - so one can expect that legal documents prepared by one member will be readily notarised by a second member of the family. In the case of a trust I handled, Ms Cleere started additional work after being presented with a diagnosis and a cease and desist letter. She also moved the grantor to engage in more expensive litigation despite drafting a document with mediation as the exclusive dispute resolution mechanism. The State Bar of Arizona was of no use in policing this attorney's actions during and after the life of the original grantor. Adult children of parents with dementia would do well to read Katie Engelhart's work in the New York Times (The Mother Who Changed, 05 09 2023). It is also useful to garner opinions only from specialised geriatric care centres at academic medical centers (Pima Behavioral Health is a far less reliable practice in this regard). If you encounter a need in this area, I would urge you to look more closely at the options you might have - you will regret any encounters with this attorney who will work to make referrals to associates eager to litigate in the Pima County probate courts. As Ms Englehart wrote "Within modern medicine, patients are never declared completely competent or incompetent in some holistic sense. Instead, doctors are asked to look at individual choices and whether or not a person is able to make a specific choice in a specific moment. This, in practice, can mean that a person with dementia can retain the ability to make choices for many years, and then lose the ability in stages. So lose the ability to make complex choices first, and then simple ones later. And this is important from a legal perspective, too. Because it means that people with dementia retain the ability to make legal choices, even when they are cognitively impaired. ... this often creates conflicts within families, because there's no clear-cut medical way to determine, without error, that a person is capable of making a specific choice". Were this lawyer practicing ethically - one could engage in a proper discussion. Here however, the more detailed a diagnosis, the remote a patient's relatives might appear (in terms of geography, but also in experience with forms of dementia) - the more this lawyer will adopt a position that increases her revenue, and one that also obstructs a family's or trustee's possession of actual facts. Whenever a licensed professional (legal, medical or accountancy) refuses direct legal authority to provide the basis for their work for a person in cognitive decline - one should be very mindful of actual or potential fraud or financial self enrichment.