About Adrienne Drell ’92 M.S.L. and Franklin Nitikman ’66 LL.B.
Drell was a journalist for the Chicago Sun-Times specializing in legal issues and later a journalism professor at Northwestern University. Nitikman was a prominent estate planning attorney for more than 40 years with the Chicago law firm of McDermott, Will and Emery. Both Drell and Nitikman became very interested in senior issues through their work and the experiences they had with their own elderly parents.
“As a result of our experiences and because we had elderly parents, both Frank and I were very interested in senior issues. This became even more relevant when Frank developed Frontal Temporal Degeneration and, very much against his character, became a victim of fraud schemes,” explained Drell, who later learned how common scams and fraud against those in their later years is around the country. According to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, seniors lose 2.9 billion annually from financial exploitation. Upon learning that many of the country’s leading law schools — including Yale — did not offer elder law courses, Drell decided that it was a priority to change the trend.
“I felt immediate action was needed to help train young attorneys about issues affecting the aged,” said Drell. “It is our hope that Yale’s program will draw attention nationally to problems involving seniors.”