Gay couples get legal help

Kris Hill

Friday, March 2, 2001 | 9:41 a.m.

Gay couples can and often do create legal rights for themselves with a visit to a lawyer, according to Susan Murray, a Vermont attorney who worked on the case that led to that state's passage of a civil union act last year.

In Las Vegas last week to lecture to law students about the case, she explained how gay couples can protect themselves with powers of attorney and living wills.

A living will lays out what type of medical care people want if they become terminally ill and unable to make decisions, especially noting whether they want extraordinary measures to be taken to keep them alive.

Power of attorney allows people to name an agent to deal with the doctors on their behalf and is specific about their wishes, she said.

Murray charges her clients as much as $4,000 for a full array of legal documents for same-gender couples, which also includes costs of paperwork that might be necessary if the couple has children.

Melina Barr, a paralegal with the local law firm Jeffrey L. Burr and Associates, charges $75 per power of attorney document. For a living will the firm normally charges $50 per document.

Barr often suggests same-gender couples create a living trust as well.

A living trust is a written agreement by which the partners share their estate and prevents the need to go to court to have an estate settled after death. It also allows the trustee access to an incapacitated person's estate to take care of the person's finances without having to go to court.

Barr has drawn up several trust agreements for same-gender couples.

"What it does is that it really helps the other partner really have access to each other's estate and assets," she said.

Creating a trust costs about $1,000 and includes power of attorney, a last will and testament that bequeaths assets not in the trust to the trust, as well as a living will, she said.

Dara Goldsmith, a local attorney with the law firm of Goldsmith and Guymon, makes the same suggestion to same-gender couples, not just because it creates more rights for them as partners, but it also provides a measure of privacy because the document won't become public record.

Goldsmith says she would charge a couple around $1,500 for a living trust that includes a variety of documents that protect their estate and shared assets and gives the couple total control over everything.