Charles P. Sabatino, J.D.

CHARLES P. SABATINO, J.D., is the Assistant Director of the ABA Commission on Law and Aging, in Washington, D.C., and a Past President and Fellow of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA). Since 1984, he has been responsible for the ABA Commission’s research, project development, consultation, and education in areas of health law, long-term care, surrogate decision-making, and legal services delivery for the elderly, including professional ethics.

Mr. Sabatino is also a part-time adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center where he has taught Law and Aging since 1987. He is also a member and former chair of the National Elder Law Foundation elder law certification exam committee, and a founding board member of Americans for Better Care of the Dying. He received his A.B. from Cornell University and his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and is a member of the Virginia and D.C. bars.

Mr. Sabatino also serves currently as chair of Public Policy for NAELA and as a member of the Ethics Advisory Panel of the Alzheimer’s Association. He was a member of the National Advisory Committee for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation national funding initiative, “Community-State Partnerships to Improve End-of-Life Care ” and a consultant to the Last Acts Campaign. In the last several years, he has spoken before state and national organizations on a wide range of law and aging topics, and he was a member of the Institute of Medicine study committee that produced the January 1995 IOM evaluation of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program entitled, Real People, Real Problems.

Mr. Sabatino has authored several articles and other materials on a variety of elder law topics, including:

• “Means to a Better End: A Report on Dying in America Today,” (November 2002), published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through the Last Acts initiative -- advisor, writer, and editor of the advance directive policy component of the report.
• “De-Balkanizing State Advance Directive Law,” 13:1 Public Policy & Aging Report 1 (Winter 2003), published by the National Academy on an Aging Society, Washington, DC.
• The Lawyer’s Tool Kit for Health Care Advance Planning (ABA, 2000).
• “Effective Advance Planning and Drafting for Health Care Decisions,” with Rebecca C. Morgan, Probate & Property (July/August 2001).
• “Representing a Client With Diminished Capacity: How Do You Know It and What Do You Do About It?” 16 Journal of the American Acadamy of Matrimonial Law 481 (2000).
• “Removing Legal Obstacles To Effective Pain Management,” 14 NAELA Quarterly 15 (Spring 2001).
• “Competency: Reforming Our Legal Fictions,” with Susanna L. Basinger, 6 Journal of Mental Health and Aging 119 (2000).
• “Survey of State EMS-DNR Laws and Protocols,” 27 Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 297 (1999).
• “ Health Care Decision Making in an Elder Law Practice ” in The ElderLaw Portfolio Series, published by Aspen Publishers.
• The American Bar Association Legal Guide for Older Americans, editor/co-author (NY: Random House/Times Books, 1998).