Rights and Funds Can Evaporate Quickly Attorneys' Powers Thwarted D.C. Residents Trying to Remain Independent[Just one example from the article]: Flo Lewellen, her relatives and social worker were shocked in 1998 when a lawyer she had never met stepped into her life. The lawyer, Julia Soininen, filed a petition with the court to have Lewellen, then 90, made her ward. Soininen had learned about Lewellen from an accountant the woman had fired, according to court records and interviews. In the petition, Soininen initially noted that she had no relationship to Lewellen, then scratched that out and wrote "concerned party --...