Building the Right Team: Who to Call, and When
One of the most valuable skills in this entire journey is knowing who to call.
And just as important — knowing that you are not supposed to be all of these people yourself.
Families arrive at my office having tried to be a Medicaid pro, a care nurse, a bookkeeper, and a financial planner all at once, usually at midnight, usually alone. It doesn’t work, and it isn’t the job. You are the coordinator, not the entire staff. Your job is to assemble the right bench and bring each player in at the right moment.
Here’s the roster.
The estate planning attorney
This is where planning-before-crisis lives: the powers of attorney, the medical directive, the will or trust.
If your parent’s documents don’t exist, are outdated, or are the wrong kind, this is your call — and the earlier the better, because of everything the timing of capacity dictates. A parent can only sign these documents while they still understand what they’re signing. That window closes quietly, and it closes earlier in practice than it does in law.
What this attorney does is make sure the right documents exist, say the right things, and are executed in a way that will actually hold when your family leans on them. The words on the page are the cheap part. Getting them to hold is the job.
The elder law attorney — and why they are not the same thing
Here is a distinction that trips up almost every family, so I want to be very clear about it.
An estate planning attorney and an elder law attorney are not the same thing. You want the right one for the job in front of you.
Estate planning is about arranging your parent’s affairs and directing where things go — who decides, who receives, how the transition happens.
Elder law is a distinct specialty focused on the legal and financial challenges of long-term care: qualifying for Medicaid, navigating VA benefits, protecting assets against nursing home costs, and the specific and unforgiving rules that govern all of it.
When the questions become “how do we pay for years of care?” or “how does Mom qualify for Medicaid without losing everything?” — that is elder law territory, and it calls for an attorney who does that work day in and day out.
I say this plainly because using the wrong specialist here is a costly mistake, and because part of getting the team right is knowing which door to knock on. I’ll tell a family directly when what they need is down the hall rather than across my desk. Any attorney worth hiring will do the same.
The geriatric care manager
Sometimes the challenge stops being documents or money and becomes the sheer day-to-day logistics of care — coordinating the appointments, the aides, the transportation, the facility, the endless small arrangements that aging requires.
There is a category of professional built for exactly that: the geriatric care manager, also called an aging life care professional. Usually a nurse or social worker by training, they assess a parent’s needs, help build a care plan, and coordinate the services.
Families stretched thin sometimes find this kind of help valuable — and so, in particular, does the sibling who lives four states away and cannot be there in person. It is a resource worth knowing exists.
Like anyone you bring into your parent’s life, check them out carefully before you rely on them. Ask about credentials, references, how they charge, and what happens after hours.
The financial and medical anchors
The financial advisor and the CPA. For the cash flow and tax questions of funding care, coordinating with the plan, and keeping the money side sound. These two often know things about your parent’s finances that no one in the family does — and they are usually glad to be looped in.
The physician or geriatrician. The medical anchor of the whole effort. They assess cognition, review the medications, and — this matters more than it should — carry an authority with your parent that you simply do not.
A parent who will not hear “you shouldn’t be driving” from a son or daughter will often accept it from a doctor without much argument. That isn’t a failure of your relationship. It’s the shape of the relationship. Use it. If there’s a hard message that needs to land, ask whether the physician is the better messenger.
As needs grow
Several other specialists exist for narrower jobs, and it’s worth knowing the names before you need them:
A daily money manager for bill-paying help. A home care agency when support at home becomes necessary. A senior move manager if a move is coming — they do this every week and you have never done it once. A hospital social worker at discharge, who is often the single most useful person in the building and the one families forget to ask for.
And if old sibling wounds are making every family conversation a battle, an eldercare mediator can be worth every penny. A neutral party in the room changes the entire dynamic.
You don’t need all of them
You may never need some of these people. That’s fine. The skill isn’t hiring an army.
The skill is knowing the roster exists — so that when a specific need appears, you know exactly who handles it, and you’re not trying to solve a Medicaid problem with a general practitioner or a medication problem with an attorney.
Start the contact directory now, while nothing is on fire. Line up the estate planning attorney early. Know who your elder law and care management options are before the day you need them, because the day you need them is never a day you’ll want to spend making phone calls and comparing websites.
Match the professional to the moment. That’s the whole art of it — and it is the thing that keeps you from carrying all of this alone.
The rest of the map. This is one chapter of The Aging Parent Playbook, a free guide I wrote both as an estate planning attorney and as a son currently walking through this with my own mother. It comes with a companion workbook of checklists and worksheets — which documents to find, what to gather, how to open the conversation. Get the free guide and workbook.
If you’d rather just talk it through, book a free 15-minute call and we’ll figure out what your family should handle first.
About Me
Jeremy Cleverly is an estate planning attorney who helps families put thoughtful plans in place for the people they love most.
His work focuses on helping parents protect minor children, prepare young adults for greater independence, and assist families navigating the legal and practical concerns that come with aging parents. He also helps individuals and couples create clear plans for incapacity, inheritance, family responsibilities and the transfer of assets.
With more than two decades of legal experience, Jeremy takes a practical, personal approach to estate planning. He begins with the family, the goals and the concerns—not the documents—then builds a plan designed to provide clarity, reduce conflict and protect what matters most.
Outside the firm, Jeremy serves on the executive board of the Aledo Education Foundation, on the board of Big Country Veterans, and on the finance committee at Aledo United Methodist Church.
He is a past President of the Ellis County Bar Association and has served on the board of the Stephen F. Austin State University Alumni Association. He has taught business law as an adjunct professor, judged business pitch competitions and guest lectured at Stephen F. Austin State University, and speaks about estate planning on podcasts and video interviews. He is a former member of Cowtown Angels, the Fort Worth angel investment network.
Before and alongside his legal practice, Jeremy founded and led Bumps and Bruises Pediatric Urgent Care, which he scaled and sold to a private equity-backed buyer. He later acquired a commercial landscaping company, rebranded it, built out its systems and processes, and sold it as well, and has helped run a third company through a venture-backed incubator. Business owners tend to find their way to him for that reason: when the conversation turns to succession, he has been on the other side of it.
Author Bio
Jeremy Cleverly is the founder and principal attorney at The Cleverly Law Firm, where he brings more than two decades of legal experience to estate planning for Texas families. As a husband and a father, he understands what is actually at stake in this work. His approach begins with the family, the goals and the concerns — not the documents.
His practice focuses on helping parents protect minor children, preparing young adults for greater independence, and guiding families through the legal and practical questions that come with an aging parent. He also helps individuals and couples create clear plans for incapacity, inheritance and the transfer of assets — plans built to work in real life, reduce conflict, and hold up when a family needs them most.
