You may be familiar with a recent ward of page and screen,
Lisbeth Salander, a.k.a. the girl with the dragon tattoo. Salander suffered at the hands of an abusive
and controlling guardian, drawing attention to an often overlooked area of law.
This week, the Columbus Dispatch shines a light on legal
guardianship in a series entitled Unguarded,
exposing a system in need of reform. For
example:
“A Dispatch analysis of more than
700 Franklin County guardianship cases opened during a three-year span
beginning in 2007 found that in more than a third of the cases, a medical or
mental-health professional determined that a patient was incompetent in less
than 30 minutes.
More than 1 in 5 of them had never before
seen the patient.”
If you’d like to learn more about Ohio’s guardian ad litem law, the Supreme Court of Ohio offers an Ohio Guardian ad Litem Education Program, and the Ohio Bar Association offers this basic explanation.
If you are a local attorney and want to volunteer as a guardian, the Columbus Bar Association offers relevant details.