Ethical Challenges in Supporting Client Independence and Autonomy

Eleanor C. Lanier is the director of Georgia Law's Mediation Practicum, and she serves as a clinical professor.

Previously, she was a consulting attorney and mediation trainer for The Center for Social Gerontology in Ann Arbor, Mich., which pioneered the use of elder mediation. She has worked as an attorney for the AARP Foundation in Washington, D.C., as a managing attorney for the Georgia Senior Legal Hotline, as a legal services developer for the Georgia Division of Aging Services and as a staff attorney for Georgia Legal Services.

Lanier is a registered mediator and arbitrator with the State of Georgia Office of Dispute Resolution and is qualified to mediate a wide range of disputes, including disputes under the ADA and IDEA. She is the co-author of "Adult Guardianship in Georgia: Are the Rights of Proposed Wards Being Protected? Can We Tell?" in the Quinnipiac Probate Law Journal and "Ethical Considerations in Medicaid Estate Planning" in the Fordham University Law Review. Lanier has been appointed to the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging for a one-year term. She is also serving a three-year term on the State Bar of Georgia Access to Justice Committee.

She has received numerous awards and was among the first class of inductees into the Elder Rights Hall of Fame. Additionally, the National Association of Senior Legal Hotlines created a scholarship in her honor that is given annually to a staff member who best demonstrates Lanier's "generosity of spirit and unflagging, open and joyful commitment to the cause of the senior legal hotlines."

Lanier earned her bachelor's from Vassar College, her master's degree in political science from UGA and her Juris Doctor from Emory University.

David M. Godfrey, J.D., is a senior attorney to the American Bar Association Commission on Law and Aging in Washington DC. He is responsible for the ABA’s role in the Administration on Community Living funded National Center on Law and Elder Rights and for producing the ABA National Aging and Law Conference. David’s expertise includes supported decision making, advance care planning, health care decision making, legal service delivery, legal ethics, and LGBT aging. Prior to joining the Commission he was responsible for elder law programming at Access to Justice Foundation in Kentucky.

Mr. Godfrey earned his B.A. with honors at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, and his J.D. cum laude from the University Of Louisville School Of Law in Kentucky.