For many readers it will be behind a WSJ paywall, but try to catch up with the alarming account by Arian Campo-Flores and Ashby Jones of chronic problems in the system of legal guardians for adults, still “plagued by allegations of financial exploitation and abuse, despite waves of overhaul efforts. As a result, critics say, many elderly people with significant assets become ensnared in a system that seems mainly to succeed at generating billings.” One Florida woman had taken what might seem to be the appropriate precautions — assigning to one of her sons power of attorney and signing advance directives designating him as her guardian — but wound up with a court-appointed guardian anyway and before long was hundreds of thousands of dollars poorer.

Filed under: wills and trusts