Cappello & Cappello, P.C. 76 Market Street, Potsdam, NY 13676

"Great service and information that met our needs."

"Our experience. Very nice staff. Easy to sign the POA. We had no idea what would make a POA helpful or not in addressing the challenges that come with aging and losing the abilities and interest in taking care of some of the mundane necessities in life, like bill paying, retirement fund mgmt, address changes, bank account changes. These require technology and specialized knowledge which gets harder with age and if it hasn't been acquired in the first place, won't be. You may need to execute your POA before those you are supporting are mentally incapable according to any medical diagnosis. As things changed, we discovered the POA designed for us has been of very little use. We would have benefited tremendously from some education upfront, some coaching as to what to consider. Instead the POA meeting was entirely transactional - it got signed and paid for. A law office advising aging couples and their children on POAs should be capable of (and willing to invest the time for) informing their clients how their health and aging might require the person(s) with the POA to use it: generally, how will it be used, what conditions must exist to be able to execute POA to support a loved on, what contingencies might arise, when the POA will be insufficient, what additional steps might be necessary, etc. For example, we had no idea that some (many?) banks will not honor a POA - even to change an address - if it requires two people to act together, since they cannot verify that they are. Why did we sign a POA that was designed this way? We should have done our research. But we trusted our lawyers would give us the advice we needed. Lesson learned. Not only has there been no follow up to repeated requests to write a simple letter enabling me to act as POA when the signed POA was not sufficient, when asked, I was told the request was out of the blue - even though we had spoken about it at least twice and they had received calls from the entity that required it."

"This firm is the real deal. I went for estate planning. They addressed my concerns with key information and let me decide. Nice people, nice atmosphere, nice experience!"

"DO NOT USE THIS ATTORNEY. The buyer used this attorney to purchase our property. It was a cash deal with no contingencies. The only thing needed was a title report for a free and clear property. They didn’t start the title work until after the contract closing date had passed. Months later they are still asking for additional documents that aren’t really required. What should’ve taken a few weeks is now going on four months. Ridiculous and unprofesssional."