Can a guardianship be filed on an Ex Parte bases (just like the Baker and Marchman Acts)?

Hello everyone, its Mark. And welcome back. In this video, I’m going to talk to you about the ex parte guardianship. That’s right, ex parte guardianship. So you’ve heard me talk in other videos about the ex parte Baker act, and you’ve heard me talk about the ex pate Marchman act.

So in Florida, one of three ways to get a baker act right. Either professional certificate is issued by, say, an emergency room doctor, law enforcement can baker act somebody, and you can go to the courthouse and you can file what’s known as an ex porte, a petition for assessment under the Baker Act, chapter 394. And once, if the court grants the ex parte order, then the police come along and they pick up your loved one and they take them to a receiving facility where they’re supposed to be assessed, right? You also have that under the March for Nut, which is chapter 397. One of the things that we do a lot of here is exporting marching acts, filing petitions for assessment and stabilization.

If it’s granted by the court, either law enforcement will go and pick somebody up, or my two retired law enforcement officers will go with police to pick somebody up. And so we’ve seen these tools, these ways of getting people picked up on lots and lots of cases, right? But one of the things that we have started recently is what’s known as an ex parte guardianship. And that is a little known and certainly little used tool. My partner Odrah, who is an unbelievably great lawyer, has been successful in getting an ex parte guardianship.

I don’t know if any other lawyers even know about it. And as I’ve said in other videos, there are no other lawyers really, that I’m aware of who are even using the guardianship to help people with substance use and mental illness. It’s really traditionally been a tool for elderly people. And occasionally I get a client who calls us and tells us that they’re estate planning lawyer, told them that we can’t do what we claim we can do. Well, we’ve been doing it very successfully for eight years.

This is all we do. We’re not filing guardianships against elderly people, but there are times when a guardianship is appropriate for somebody, and it’s appropriate when there’s an emergency pending and we don’t want the state taking custody of them and baker acting them, and then we have a problem getting them out of the facility. So, yes, there is a section of the guardianship statute which allows for an ex parte order. And if you think that your loved 1 may be appropriate for it, then we are are absolutely happy and would encourage you to call us so we can talk to you about how we can help your loved one. Anyway, with that said, thanks for tuning in to see you in the next video.
Bye.