Linda Chamberlain: A Legacy in Elder Law and Family Ties

Transcript

Ernestine: 0:00

Welcome to Bon Vivant Chic Life Well Lived the podcast. For anyone who wants to cut through today's noise and listen to meaningful conversations on the human experience and the power of connectedness. I'm your host Ernestine Morgan, an advocate for kindness with a passion for showcasing human interest stories that matter. Today I am excited to be sitting with my friend Linda Chamberlain. Linda is a board certified elder law attorney who has practiced in Clearwater and the surrounding area since 1991. Linda is also the founder of Aging Wisely, a professional care management company and Easy Living, a non-medical private duty home care company. In addition, she's an adjunct professor at Stetson University College of Law. Even with all that she has going on, she still excels as being the best Bagda to her six grandkids. Linda and I have a group of friends who love to travel. I've really enjoyed the close friendships Larry and I have made. So let's get started. Linda, thanks for sitting down with me today.

Linda: 1:05

Thanks for having me, and I'm excited for your new venture.

Ernestine: 1:09

Can you please share a little bit about. Where you grew up and what life was

Linda: 1:13

like. I grew up in a small town in western Maryland, about an hour and a half outside of Washington DC called Smithsburg. Probably our biggest claim to fame was being at the base of a mountain that was 10 minutes from Camp David, which Is the president's weekend hideaway. We always had lots of helicopters and car lines it's a beautiful area. Mountains rolling hills and lots of farmland. It's very rural, small population. Not a lot of excitement, but probably the perfect place to grow up. You could ride your bike for miles. It really was that place where you left in the morning and your mom would say, be home in time for dinner, grew up with my mom and dad and with my sister, who, if she ever listens to this will kill me. She's 10 years older than I am, but that was good for me. She was and is a huge part of my life.

Ernestine: 2:05

What was it like living in that town?

Linda: 2:07

I'd say the majority of the people that lived there were either small farmers. They might sell some, produce, a few animals, but that was their livelihood. Or they were laborers. So they did some sort of roofing build roads or construction. Many other people that I grew up with, their dad worked in a factory and their mom stayed at home. I had one aunt that was a working mother. But she was a single mother. Otherwise, it was very much a traditional community. Man went to work, wife stayed at home.

Ernestine: 2:37

What are some of the fondest memories that you have from growing up in this town?

Linda: 2:41

I have a lot of great ones. And I'd say it's not just the town, it's just that we came from such a large family. My mom had nine brothers and sisters. The cool thing was, that my grandparents had that true family farm. Just imagine there was a huge pond that had ducks and geese on a regular basis. There was a full chicken house, you could always go and get your own eggs. There was the typical, traditional red barn. That housed all their cows. They had cattle in the surrounding. Acreage. A three story home. A spring house, so you would go in there and get your fresh water. It was the same cold temperature all the time, and it never froze. In the winter, you could access it all the time. I always remember them having an indoor bathroom. Evidently when I was much younger they did not have one. There were still remnants of that outhouse out on the farm. I'd say some of the cool things being surrounded by that much family. And now that I'm a grandmother. I wonder if my grandmother planned all this on purpose, but she kept everybody coming back. They would raise all the food for all of these 10 families. Those 10 families would all come back to help do everything. I had over 50 cousins. You can just imagine, the corn is ready to be pulled. The men would all come over, pull the corn husk it. The women would have this huge black pot, and they would set it up outside this beautiful pond. And they would have this huge black pot over an open flame where they'd boil the water and the women would blanch all the corn, and then they would set up an assembly line where they'd cut the corn off and then somebody else on the line would be putting it into freezer boxes. And then they'd have a great meal and everybody would go home with their corn to put in the freezer for the rest of that year. Think about that with every vegetable. And then when winter hit, my grandparents gave each family half of a beef each year, I've seen more than I ever wanted to know about where my meat comes from.

4:46

Yeah.

Linda: 4:47

Be a full day of butchering, cutting it up and wrapping it up, and then everybody would take it home to freeze it and then later eat it, it just was that full family affair. And then every Sunday my grandmother would fix a fried chicken lunch after church, everybody went back over. I always laugh. I was 13 till I'd ever tried pasteurized milk. Because everybody went to my grandparents to get their milk. I just think about the impact of my grandmother wanting to make sure she saw her kids and her grandkids well, she did.

Ernestine: 5:19

Who had the biggest influence on you when you were young?

Linda: 5:23

My grandmother. it's interesting, a lot of people that. End up finding or creating their career somewhere around some type of elder care. It's usually an influence of a grandma. Or some sort of relationship with a grandparent. For my grandmother, I tell this story a lot to my grandkids, because gosh, if I could be half of what she was, I want to be like she was with me. She was all about you and what you wanted to do. My sister and I often talk about, this company called Burpees, they sell seeds. She'd get her. Magazine in the mail, the catalog, and you'd get to go through and cut out the exact seeds you wanted and then she would get them. Then you'd come over she'd help you learn how to plant them. And watch them every week when you came over it just took time to teach you a lot of those things. I remember making her coffee out of dirt like literally taking hot water and taking some dirt because I didn't know how to make coffee. She drank the whole thing, who does that? She was just that presence what truly impacted my career with her is she fell when she was 76. She probably needed a hip replacement, but in the 1970s, they weren't proactively doing hip replacements. When she fell and broke her hip, it was only six years after Medicare had been introduced by Congress. And so we didn't have, Outpatient therapy. We didn't have home health that came to your house what we had was a county home. The county home would do rehab. They might have mental health patients addiction patients permanently disabled people living there. But it was a variety of populations under one roof. And she lasted one night. After she broke her hip. So she had the surgery. She lasted one night there in that she said, I have to go home. She's crying like crazy. The 10 kids meet. My grandfather meets and they're like, we're bringing her home. She lived at home another five years, but she never walked again. And I just think, that impact always stuck with me in that if they would've had help or guidance or someone to help them understand that this isn't for the rest of her life, it's maybe for two weeks her life might have had a different, ending.

Ernestine: 7:34

You've carried that with you throughout your journey.

Linda: 7:37

You can really see how not understanding choices and the outcomes of those choices, where maybe a little more exploration might have opened up.

Ernestine: 7:46

What was the first job that you had?

Linda: 7:48

I always laugh. There were so many first jobs because I started at 13, I worked at the Fanny Farmer candy store and I loved it because you had to try each chocolate that they had so that you could describe it to the customer. There were probably 60 chocolates. It was perfect. They kept on saying you'd get tired of it, I never did. And then the other big thing that happened there was, President Jimmy Carter came in one day, that was a big highlight of my life. That was the first time I had met a president and he had been visiting. Camp David. And then came to the Fanny Farmer candy shop. my jobs have layered on each other, but I'd say, I started out in the senior area. When I, had the opportunity to go to college, my first job there was with a continuing care retirement center called University Village. It was right next door to Oral Roberts University. People were moving there from all over the country to have one place to move to. It was a newer concept of you could start in the home, like you could own a house there and then if you needed to transition to,, more community living than assisted living and than a nursing home, if you needed that, you could. But I worked as an activities director, helping people acclimate to their new home. One of the areas I managed was home care. So it's funny, that I was part of it back then and then circle back to it later in life. It was between my husband and my mother-in-law. They're like, you need to become a lawyer. You should go to law school. I had never even met a lawyer until I married my husband and his family had a lot of lawyers in them. That was a whole new exposure to me. so from having that encouragement. And then my husband, part of his training was, being part of a fellowship program and his was at the University of Cincinnati. I was able to get complete tuition remission while he was there. And when I took the lsat, I give time a lot of credit for this. I was in my thirties by now. I did great on the lsat. It was like getting ready for a marathon. I trained for it, took it, did great, and then got a scholarship that paid for all of my childcare. We would've never been able to have done that. If we wouldn't have had all that. Help. At that time I had two kids. And then of course I had my third one, my last year of law school. My husband Kerry is a board certified hematologist oncologist. I met him at a airport in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Kind of a strange event. I was at the Tulsa airport waiting for a girlfriend of mine from high school to fly in to visit me for her spring break from college. While I'm at the airport, I have a friend's car. Kerry who I did not know comes over to me and says, I just got back from Philadelphia or someplace like that and my car won't start. Could you help me and jump my car? I said, I don't think so. It's not my car. And we're just becoming familiar, like looking at each other and chatting a little bit. And then he's like, do you think you'd like to go out tomorrow night? And I'm like, okay., I do wanna preface, I had met him one time through my roommate. On the stairs someplace on campus. So he was a student, not like, I was just going out with some random guy from the airport. I had set up my girlfriend who was coming in on a blind date. It was a perfect night for me to be able to go out. And all I can tell you is the rest is history and we're 45 years when Kerry finished his training at the University of Cincinnati, he was recruited and brought down to Florida by a group we moved here and my parents eventually followed us Kerry's parents would come in winter it was the best of both worlds.

Ernestine: 11:21

Tell me a little bit about Elder Law?

Linda: 11:24

Elder law has grown tremendously since, the mid eighties, and that was about the time I moved here in 89. One of the founders of Elder Law is right here in our community. His name is Charlie Robinson. He's not only just a great human being. He's so smart.

Ernestine: 11:41

he's been a great mentor to you, hasn't he?

Linda: 11:43

He's been amazing and I have to say both Charlie and Louise his wife. Really out of need because people would come in to say, we need to get our estate planning done, and then they'd start to talk about having all of these problems. I think back to probably even the seventies and early eighties, I need to look into the statistics on this as far as how. Infrequently we met with people that were suffering from dementia. Compared to how it seems like it accelerated someplace between the eighties and nineties. So whether we were diagnosing it more or it was growing in volume, I'm not sure. But I think you would see more of that in the law office and then people struggling to say, my husband or wife, I can't take care of them at home. And they weren't just dying, but they weren't able to live in the home anymore. Because typically by the time you need nursing home level of care, you are not getting in and out of your bed independently. A lot of people don't have the family to support that. They didn't have the resources, whether financial physical or mental to do all of that. I think that specialty developed outta there.'cause it's how are you going to pay for this? How does this work? And Medicaid is one of the options that we have in most states. Most states Medicaid will help pay for nursing home care during my career, it has extended to assisted living as well as in-home care, which is great.

Ernestine: 13:06

What are some of the most rewarding moments in your elder law career?

Linda: 13:11

I'd say those are twofold. Having the opportunity to practice with Charlie for eight or nine years was amazing. There were so many doors open to me that wouldn't have been opened. But for the fact that I had worked with him and during my time with him, there was so much changing in the world of elder law and to be part of all of that at a national level, we were going to meetings all over the place everybody was finding new areas we could focus on and then I think the other thing that made it great for me is I started to get a little frustrated because I wasn't able to help people specifically figure out which nursing home, which assisted living made sense. What are we really looking for? Charlie and I are talking about it and we started. A small care management practice outside of our law firm so that we could help people through the entire continuum. And that was how we brought, aging wisely into being, was, leaving the law firm and setting up care management as a freestanding practice, which again, it's not helping you with your legal issues, it's really helping you with those day-to-day struggles. And then most of the time for people that have not done planning, what happens is there's a fall, there's a stroke, there's a new diagnosis that blows your world up. And that's where a care manager makes all the difference in the world, in helping you perhaps find the correct resources. Find out all the help and services that might be available to you, and then help you as a family figure out what works for you. We would spend a lot of time researching, writing papers, putting together presentations, speaking to lawyers all over because there is never a competition. It's our responsibility once we know these things, to share it with other lawyers so they can share it with other people. And I loved that. And then that created a strong group of lawyers that I have been able to share my career with, while I've lived in the Clearwater area. I'm forever grateful I never felt like I was in competition. It was just, we have a service to provide and this is what we do, and we're gonna share it with every attorney we can. Because we have more 85 year olds per square mile in Pinellas County than anywhere else in the world.

Ernestine: 15:24

And from all that you've learned over the years, you created a business called Easy Living.

Linda: 15:30

Aging Wisely was first as the care management and that we evolved into Easy Living. I can remember the day my husband and I are walking on Clearwater Beach. We were talking about the struggle. Aging wisely, was having, finding good home care, it's very difficult to find good home care. We wanted to do it better we decided to open a company called Easy Living that would focus on home care we set that up as a separate entity because Home Care in Florida is a licensed service, which means the agency for healthcare, you have to go through a licensing procedure and then they have to certify and approve you to open your business. We started that in 2005. I had a variety of different executive directors, and I'm not gonna lie, it was struggling. I loved care management. It was right in my wheelhouse. I could train other people. It was what my experience was, it was what my education was in and that had worked out so well. I had an incredible team of care managers all the time. And still today we have just an amazing team of care managers. I struggle with home care. It was a different business than care management. So I remember it was, 2008 and our middle son, Alex was getting ready to graduate from college. He had worked his entire way through college. He was a sailor when he grew up, so boating has always been his thing. He had worked with intrepid. While he was in college in Fort Lauderdale. So that was gonna be his job. They had trained him. He was all ready for a sales position. He was graduating and that's what he was going to do. And then, in 2008, we had a huge financial crisis here in the United States. He graduated and was still in South Florida working there. And I get a call and then a little note that says, would you like me to help you with easy living? That would be wonderful. We're trying to get this business off the ground I look back and think, when transitioning a company, it probably started in 2008. I just didn't realize it. We were deeply in debt with easy living by the time he decided to join. It was not ready. But it needed to change quickly. So Alex, jumped right in, if somebody called off for a shift, he went and did it. When he went to Palm Harbor University High School in the medical magnet program, graduated with a CNA certification, that it would come in handy so he was able to do that. He took on the scheduling you might have 30 clients, you're running a schedule, and it was all done on spreadsheets. He was able to bring in technology to implement it to be, electronic. He's great with caregivers. He's very good at nurturing people that love to nurture others. And that's what a caregiver is. The people that want to do caregiving and work as caregivers, they love people, they want to take care of'em, they want to make their lives better. They're helping you get to the restroom, they're helping you get your shower, they're helping you figure out anything that might taste good to you and fixing it for you. They're doing all of that and he just naturally excelled there. And within a year he had become the executive director and turned a profit. That college degree was well worth the money. With that business growing and the care management growing, we moved to under one roof in 2011, but we were still two separate businesses because one was licensed and one wasn't. By 2016 that just didn't make sense anymore. And Alex pulled everything together under one name. Now using the name Easy Living, you're experts in aging wisely. He's grown the company tremendously. When you start something like this and you have a dream my dream was let's just make every stage of that older person's life as good as we can. to have a child that shares that passion and takes it further than you ever dreamed is beyond my wildest dreams i'm excited. It's a company that's continuing on. It's the second generation now. I look at those grandkids and wonder time will tell. I'm grateful that he was there and that we've had all these opportunities..

Ernestine: 19:31

You were recently selected to serve on the national board of ACTS retirement life communities.

Linda: 19:37

One of the largest nonprofit continuing care retirement center, programs in the United States. They have over 25 locations and I love what they do. I'm honored to be part of this board I got introduced to them because I've been on the board of Mease Life in Dunedin For many years. We, made a decision as a board three years ago to affiliate with Acts, retirement communities, and they now are the, managing partner of mease life.

Ernestine: 20:06

Have there been any pivotal moments or decisions that changed the course of your life?

Linda: 20:11

Just going to college was a pretty pivotal moment for me. In the area that I grew up in, not everybody graduated high school thinking they would go to college. It wasn't always promoted as, you have to go to college I was very fortunate because my sister and her husband, really wanted me to go to college and have more opportunity. I am so grateful to them because I don't think I would've ever gotten to go to college if, they really wouldn't have forced my parents into making it apparent to them that it was important that I get to go. When I, look back it was a very rural area and I did get to DC so it's not like I was totally isolated, but I had my first bagel at college. Going to Oral Roberts University was an amazing experience. Anybody that's ever heard of Oral Robert, it's usually the first thing you think of is expect a miracle. That was like every day expect a miracle, something good is going to happen to you today. When you hear this every day in every class, you start to believe it. The other one is miracles are coming at you or they're going right by you. You just gotta reach out there and grab'em.

Ernestine: 21:14

They must have a lot of happy students.

Linda: 21:16

They do well, or they did. But I think that culture of positivity was huge. The next major impact was meeting my husband., I'm so glad that he was the one I've gotten to share my life with because he really encouraged me to do everything I've done. He's been, a true partner. We've been a team with raising our kids, managing our home, with everything that we've done. He's been my best cheerleader, never doubting, what I could or couldn't do. I don't think I would've had any accomplishment, but for the fact that he's been there right with me all the time by my side. And then probably the next one would have to be, Charlie and Louise Robinson. So many things I learned with them they just had a huge impact. My three kids, what an impact children have on your life. I have. Three incredible sons. They've all chosen wonderful careers. They've grown incredible families, and what they give back to me is huge. I'm so proud of all of them. And I love having a relationship with each of them. What lessons about family and relationships would you pass along to law students or attorneys just starting out? One, don't ever forget your family. They are always there. Whether you've had a great week or a bad week, or a client's fired you, just always remember to put that family first. No matter what. But then I'd say the second thing is it takes time. Just build relationships and those relationships will support you throughout your entire career. It takes time for people to trust you. You get very close with people. So for people to refer people to you, their clients, their loved ones, they have to get very comfortable with you. It's a very, transactional area of law, which means there's very little litigation. I've never gotten into litigation. You get called From time to time as an expert, into the court arena. I'd say just building those relationships are huge. And then I'd say the third thing is never, ever burn a bridge. There's just no reason to ever do that. We're a very populated community in Pinellas County that acts like it's a small town. You cannot meet anybody that doesn't know somebody that you already know. It's probably been 25 years since I've been to something where somebody there didn't know somebody that I know pretty well. I'm sure you find that everywhere you go.

Ernestine: 23:38

Absolutely. What are some life lessons you've learned that you wish you knew earlier in life?

Linda: 23:45

Being present. I feel like I rushed, and over obligated myself a lot through my life. And I thought that's what you were supposed to do. I missed out on a lot growing up in a very rural and modest. Area. So the opportunities I've been given have been huge. When somebody says, do you want to, can you go? How about this? I'm like, sure. It's hard for me to say no. Learning to say no. Setting boundaries and really knowing what you want, make yourself think about that and make sure you're spending your time doing what you wanna do. That would be my main advice.

Ernestine: 24:19

What do you think is the secret to a fulfilling and happy life?

Linda: 24:23

Loving your family, building that legacy with them? My faith is huge for me. And then I think just always being open to New opportunities and to figure out what you might be passionate about. My, passion has always leaned into anything in the senior space i'd say as I'm getting older, really helping people understand, and this is anybody that I meet, not just my clients, I get a lot of clients now that aren't so much worried about, the cost of their care they've purchased insurance or perhaps saved some money to pay for their long-term care. They really wanna know what does that journey look like? And being able to help people see that journey and how. Planning for it doesn't mean it's going to happen. You can't be afraid to plan. It might open up,, and make your life a little more enjoyable. Love your family, love your God, and, pursue your passions.

Ernestine: 25:16

What keeps you inspired and motivated today?

Linda: 25:20

My grandchildren, six grandkids, ages nine through five. They're all amazing. My oldest is a granddaughter. My youngest is a granddaughter with four boys in the middle, and they are just amazing people. I have six new people in my life that weren't there before and they all joined my. Life between 2015 and 2020. The only way you get to know people is to spend time with them. There's either casual acquaintances where you just get to say hi every now and again, or you really spend time with them and you know them. And that's me. I really have gotten to know them. I love spending time with them and I focus really hard on the impact I can have on them.

Ernestine: 26:00

You're very intentional with those relationships, with your grandkids. Yeah. Very

Linda: 26:04

intentional. I spend a lot of time planning everything we're going to do, every family event. You wanna keep it fun, you wanna be the place that they want to come. And then, we have a chance as grandparents, that they listen to us through different stages. To just be there and have time to really have conversations. One thing I'm doing that's been a lot of fun is each week, my husband and I write them letters. And pretend we're. A president of the United States. And so we give a little history. A little challenge to them and they get so excited. This is what President I got this week. That's been a lot of fun.

Ernestine: 26:40

Oh, that's great. As you know, I've been in the philanthropy space for 25 plus years and what I've learned during that time is that philanthropy means different things to different people. Can you share what philanthropy means to you?

Linda: 26:55

first I'd like to say thank you for doing that for so long.'cause everybody needs that advocate and you have been that advocate, which is awesome. My husband and I, both feel the same about philanthropy in that we've been called to work with individuals and to, help individuals and stay within our community. So what I mean by that is there's a lot of incredible nationwide charities that never was our calling to contribute, to serve and help in those areas. But in our local area, we like to help people that need help right. That minute. So it might be a patient or a client or charities right here in the local area where you can do a donation that will specifically help a family out of a big crisis they might be in. We like doing that and we feel we've been called to do that at a community basis, supporting our community, like our schools, our hospitals, all the services you can sometimes take for granted, but really make the difference when you're in that crisis.

Ernestine: 27:50

Thank you. This has been terrific. I appreciate you sitting down with me for a few minutes just to chat

Linda: 27:57

oh, thank you Ernie, for having me. It's been a lot of fun.

Ernestine: 27:59

Thanks for listening to Bon Vivant Chic Life Well Lived. I hope you'll tune in for more meaningful stories on the human experience and share with family and friends. All the episodes are available on Spotify Buzz Sprout, Apple and on my website, bonvivantchic.com. Till next time, remember, every day is a gift. Live it. Kindness matters.