Home › Blog › Congratulations to Eric R. Goldberg, CELA

With a New Year brings new beginnings.

Goldberg Law Group is proud to announce that our very own Eric Goldberg has become a Certified Elder Law Attorney (CELA). For those of you who are not familiar with this designation, it’s a big deal! To become a CELA one must:

  1. Pass a rigorous full day exam comprised of 12 subjects, including: Health and personal care planning, pre-mortem legal planning, fiduciary representation, legal capacity counseling, public benefits advice, and special needs counseling.
  2. Receive favorable recommendations from five other attorneys, some of which must be CELA’s.
  3. Focus his or her practice on elder law, commit to continuing legal education and have substantial experience in most of the subject matters tested in the exam.

Historically, only a small percentage of applicants are accepted as CELAs. Many applicants take the exam three times before passing. Therefore, the CELA group is comprised of a tiny group of the finest and most experienced elder law attorneys in the country.

Eric and I sat down last year to discuss whether he wished to attempt this monumental and time-consuming task. He wanted to make certain that I would handle some of his duties while he studied 3-4 hours per day for months. Of course, I agreed! We decided to move forward with the application process.

In Eric’s words, “I wanted to be a CELA for two reasons: First, our practice is special. We use the most modern planning techniques combined with perhaps the most efficient and client-centric organizational structure in the elder law field. We truly want to help our clients. I wanted to add this prestigious designation to rubber stamp those attributes. Second, I wanted a reason to delve deeper into elder law – to expose myself to areas of this wonderful field that I don’t practice on a daily basis. It worked! I gained so much knowledge in the last few months that I feel it has propelled the practice further.”

Once again, we’re proud of Eric. At Goldberg Law Group we always look for ways to increase our knowledge and services to serve our seniors in the most intelligent, respectful and efficient manner possible.