Excerpt From New Book on Adult Guardianship

Below is the introduction to Chapter 2: A Modern History of Guardianship Law, by attorney A. Frank Johns, from the new book Comparative Perspectives on Adult Guardianship, edited by A. Kimberley Dayton, and published by Carolina Academic Press. To purchase the book, visit the website here.

Chapter 2 - A Modern History of Guardianship Law

A. Frank Johns

Introduction

This chapter on the modern history of guardianship is written primarily from the perspective of guardianship law in the United States, which derives from English common law. It provides an overview of U.S. colonial law relating to persons with mental illness and or developmental disabilities, and furnishes a glimpse of guardianship development in other countries during a similar timeframe. It reviews decades of modern U.S. guardianship history from the 1950s to the 2000s, including the development of the Uniform Guardianship Protective Proceedings Act. The chapter notes concerns still evident with the current status quo of U.S. guardianship law as prescribed in state statutes and guardianship administration, and ends with a brief comparison of current U.S. guardianship law with guardianship law of countries that are the focus of authors in Part II of this book.