Call us at (727) 209-8282

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  • About
    • What is Elder Law?
    • Our Philosophy
    • Our Team
  • Practice Areas
    • Estate Planning
    • Wills and Trusts
    • Probate and Trust Administration
    • Incapacity Planning
    • Medicaid Long-Term Care Benefits
    • VA Aid and Attendance Benefits
  • Giving Back
  • Latest News
  • Contact
    • Location, Directions & Parking
    • Complimentary Consultation
  • Home
  • About
    • What is Elder Law?
    • Our Philosophy
    • Our Team
  • Practice Areas
    • Estate Planning
    • Wills and Trusts
    • Probate and Trust Administration
    • Incapacity Planning
    • Medicaid Long-Term Care Benefits
    • VA Aid and Attendance Benefits
  • Giving Back
  • Latest News
  • Contact
    • Location, Directions & Parking
    • Complimentary Consultation

Our Team

At Edwards Elder Law, we take a team approach to providing services for our clients. Take a moment to meet our team!

Stephanie M. Edwards – Founder and Attorney

Stephanie founded Edwards Elder Law, P.A., to provide seniors and their families with the legal services needed to address immediate care concerns, proactively plan for the future, and cope during times of crisis.

Stephanie decided to focus her practice exclusively on the needs of seniors and their families in part because of a personal experience. The father of one of her friends suddenly became ill and had to be taken to the hospital. Within days, his condition worsened and he was released to hospice where he passed away after a few weeks.

The frustration, stress, and confusion inherent in this process took a toll on Stephanie’s friend. After seeking advice from an attorney, however, coping with the loss of his beloved father became easier to manage. He no longer felt like he was bearing so many responsibilities and making so many decisions alone. He now had someone to help him evaluate which steps to take next and make sense of unfamiliar legal procedures.

Partly because of this experience and partly because it is simply her nature, Stephanie takes a highly personal approach to the practice of law. She understands what her clients are going through and takes the time to listen closely and gain a thorough understanding of their unique situations, needs and goals. Only then does she devise a strategy or plan to address each client’s individual concerns.

Stephanie takes pride in her team’s accessibility and responsiveness to her clients.

Stephanie earned her B.A. from the University of Virginia and her J.D. from the T.C. Williams School of Law at the University of Richmond. She earned her LL.M. in Elder Law from Stetson University College of Law.

Stephanie is a member of the Florida State Bar, the St. Petersburg Bar Association and the Virginia State Bar. She is also a member of leading professional organizations, including the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, the Academy of Florida Elder Law Attorneys, Elder Counsel and Wealth Counsel. In addition, Stephanie is an Adjunct Professor of Law at Stetson University College of Law. In keeping with her commitment to education, Stephanie often shares her knowledge as a speaker in the community.

Stephanie grew up in Virginia and moved to St. Petersburg several years ago. In her spare time, she enjoys gardening, knitting, reading, cooking, shuffleboard and playing with her cats, Emma and Cooper.

Stephanie Edwards
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Amelia Nichols – Client Services Coordinator

Amelia is a Florida native, originally from Sarasota, Florida. She moved to St. Petersburg in 2004, where she attended Eckerd College. Amelia and her husband recently welcomed their second child into the world. She spends her free time with her family enjoying the beaches of Fort De Soto and walking the nature trails at Boyd Hill.

Amelia assists our clients with handling their family’s elder law and probate needs.

Amelia can be reached at Amelia@EdwardsElderLaw.com

Amy McDowell – Client Services Coordinator

Hailing from New Jersey, Amy moved to Florida as a young adult. She attended college, studying English literature. Her main focus through the years has been on her daughter, but Amy also has played “mom” to several dogs along the way. The previous owner of two Great Danes, a Black Lab and a Staffy, Amy has now downsized to grandmothering Charlie, a Pocket Maltese. In her spare time, Amy enjoys knitting, crocheting, gardening, and running her Etsy Shop.

Amy provides client services throughout the estate planning process and can be reached at Amy@EdwardsElderLaw.com

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Candy Porter – Marketing Coordinator

Born in Ohio, Candy arrived in Florida in 2010 after residing for 43 years in Indianapolis. Her professional career spanned decades in the fields of public relations and marketing, providing services for a wide variety of local and nationally-known corporations and nonprofit organizations. Still an avid community volunteer, Candy also finds time to pursue her passions for travel and exploring world cultures.

The law firm’s public speaking engagements, special event coordination, advertising, and website management are some of the tasks Candy oversees as our Marketing Coordinator.

Candy can be reached at Candy@EdwardsElderLaw.com

Zack and Zoe – Feline Support Staff

It was love at first sight (at least on our part) when a feral cat and her two kittens appeared on our office doorstep in 2020. Mama cat elected to remain in her outside home, while the two kitten siblings, named Zack and Zoe, took up residence inside our office. Our plan was to have them help greet visitors to our office but starting life as feral kittens has made them too shy for the role of greeter.  However, Zack and Zoe excel in their own chosen roles of morale booster and stress reliever for those of us lucky enough to share the office with them. These two cats not only have taken over our office but also our hearts.

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Edwards Elder Law - St. Petersburg

Whether you are looking for guidance regarding an elder law issue for a family member or yourself, you can turn to Edwards Elder Law. We help people who have an immediate need for long-term care assistance, as well as people who want to start talking about their options for paying for long-term care assistance before they have this need.

Practice Areas
  • Estate Planning
  • Wills and Trusts
  • Probate and Trust Administration
  • Incapacity Planning
  • Medicaid Long-Term Care Benefits
  • VA Aid and Attendance Benefits
Contact Us

Edwards Elder Law, P.A.
St. Petersburg, Florida, Elder Law Attorney
2510 1st Ave. N.
St. Petersburg, FL 33713
View Map
(727) 209-8282

Disclaimer

The information on this website is for general information purposes only. Nothing on this site should be taken as legal advice for any individual case or situation. This information is not intended to create, and receipt or viewing does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship.

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2020 Edwards Elder Law - St. Petersburg WordPress website by Solid Red Studios | Graphic design by Vanessa Wheeler

Accessibility

Accessibility modes

Epilepsy Safe Mode
Dampens color and removes blinks
This mode enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.
Visually Impaired Mode
Improves website's visuals
This mode adjusts the website for the convenience of users with visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
Cognitive Disability Mode
Helps to focus on specific content
This mode provides different assistive options to help users with cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia, Autism, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
ADHD Friendly Mode
Reduces distractions and improve focus
This mode helps users with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders to read, browse, and focus on the main website elements more easily while significantly reducing distractions.
Blindness Mode
Allows using the site with your screen-reader
This mode configures the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.

Readable Experience

Content Scaling
Default
Text Magnifier
Readable Font
Dyslexia Friendly
Highlight Titles
Highlight Links
Font Sizing
Default
Line Height
Default
Letter Spacing
Default
Left Aligned
Center Aligned
Right Aligned

Visually Pleasing Experience

Dark Contrast
Light Contrast
Monochrome
High Contrast
High Saturation
Low Saturation

Easy Orientation

Mute Sounds
Hide Images
Virtual Keyboard
Reading Guide
Stop Animations
Reading Mask
Highlight Hover
Highlight Focus
Big Dark Cursor
Big Light Cursor
Navigation Keys

Edwards Elder Law Accessibility Statement

Accessibility Statement

  • edwardselderlaw.com
  • January 16, 2023

Compliance status

We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.

To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.

This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.

Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.

If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email

Screen-reader and keyboard navigation

Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:

  1. Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.

    These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.

  2. Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.

    Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.

Disability profiles supported in our website

  • Epilepsy Safe Mode: this profile enables people with epilepsy to use the website safely by eliminating the risk of seizures that result from flashing or blinking animations and risky color combinations.
  • Visually Impaired Mode: this mode adjusts the website for the convenience of users with visual impairments such as Degrading Eyesight, Tunnel Vision, Cataract, Glaucoma, and others.
  • Cognitive Disability Mode: this mode provides different assistive options to help users with cognitive impairments such as Dyslexia, Autism, CVA, and others, to focus on the essential elements of the website more easily.
  • ADHD Friendly Mode: this mode helps users with ADHD and Neurodevelopmental disorders to read, browse, and focus on the main website elements more easily while significantly reducing distractions.
  • Blindness Mode: this mode configures the website to be compatible with screen-readers such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TalkBack. A screen-reader is software for blind users that is installed on a computer and smartphone, and websites must be compatible with it.
  • Keyboard Navigation Profile (Motor-Impaired): this profile enables motor-impaired persons to operate the website using the keyboard Tab, Shift+Tab, and the Enter keys. Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.

Additional UI, design, and readability adjustments

  1. Font adjustments – users, can increase and decrease its size, change its family (type), adjust the spacing, alignment, line height, and more.
  2. Color adjustments – users can select various color contrast profiles such as light, dark, inverted, and monochrome. Additionally, users can swap color schemes of titles, texts, and backgrounds, with over 7 different coloring options.
  3. Animations – epileptic users can stop all running animations with the click of a button. Animations controlled by the interface include videos, GIFs, and CSS flashing transitions.
  4. Content highlighting – users can choose to emphasize important elements such as links and titles. They can also choose to highlight focused or hovered elements only.
  5. Audio muting – users with hearing devices may experience headaches or other issues due to automatic audio playing. This option lets users mute the entire website instantly.
  6. Cognitive disorders – we utilize a search engine that is linked to Wikipedia and Wiktionary, allowing people with cognitive disorders to decipher meanings of phrases, initials, slang, and others.
  7. Additional functions – we provide users the option to change cursor color and size, use a printing mode, enable a virtual keyboard, and many other functions.

Browser and assistive technology compatibility

We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.

Notes, comments, and feedback

Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to