A stroke. A coma. Advanced dementia. When you can’t tell doctors what you want, your living will speaks for you. It tells your family exactly how you want to be cared for—so they’re not making impossible decisions in a hospital hallway at 2 AM, second-guessing themselves for the rest of their lives.
At Boroja, Bernier & Associates, we create healthcare directives that leave nothing to chance. Because the conversations that matter most shouldn’t happen after you’ve lost the ability to have them.
STATEWIDE SERVICE — Available to All Michigan Residents
The Gift Nobody Wants to Give—and Everyone’s Grateful to Receive
Here’s what happens when someone doesn’t have a living will:
A family clusters in a hospital waiting room. Dad’s on a ventilator after a massive stroke. He can’t breathe on his own, can’t respond, and the doctors say there’s virtually no chance of meaningful recovery. Now they’re asking the family what to do.
And the family has no idea.
Would he want to be kept alive like this? He never said. He hated talking about death. Would he want us to stop treatment? That feels like killing him. Would he want us to keep going indefinitely? He always said he never wanted to be a burden. But what does “burden” mean? What would HE choose?
That conversation happens thousands of times a year in Michigan hospitals. The guilt, the conflict, the second-guessing—it can tear families apart. Brothers stop speaking to sisters. Spouses carry doubt for decades. Did we do what he would have wanted? They’ll never really know.
A living will prevents all of it.
It puts your decisions in writing before the crisis—while you can think clearly, while you can discuss your values with your family, while you can actually explain what quality of life means to you. Your family doesn’t have to guess. They don’t have to decide. They simply honor what you’ve already told them.
Michigan doesn’t have a specific living will statute. Instead, your right to document future medical treatment preferences comes from case law recognizing a patient’s constitutional right to refuse treatment. Courts enforce these directives when they provide “clear and convincing evidence” of your wishes. Combined with a patient advocate designation, your living will creates a comprehensive healthcare planning framework that Michigan courts and hospitals will respect.
“The families who carry the most guilt after losing someone aren’t the ones who had to make hard end-of-life decisions. They’re the ones who had to make those decisions without knowing what their loved one actually wanted. A living will isn’t morbid—it’s one of the most generous things you can do for the people who love you. It tells them exactly what you want so they never have to wonder if they made the right call.”
At Boroja, Bernier & Associates, we create living wills as part of comprehensive estate planning for Michigan families—included in every will-based plan ($1,500–$2,500) and trust-based plan ($2,500–$5,500), alongside your financial power of attorney, patient advocate designation, and other essential documents. We serve clients statewide with consultations available by phone, video, or in person at our Shelby Township headquarters.
Living Will vs. Patient Advocate Designation: Two Documents, One Conversation
Why You Need Both
People confuse these constantly. Your patient advocate designation names who decides. Your living will explains what you want decided. Without both, you have gaps that create problems at the worst possible moment.
Patient Advocate Designation (Michigan’s Healthcare Power of Attorney)
Under MCL 700.5506-5515, this document names your “patient advocate”—the person authorized to make healthcare decisions when you can’t. It answers the question: If I can’t speak for myself, who speaks for me?
Living Will (Advance Healthcare Directive)
This document provides written instructions about your treatment preferences—particularly end-of-life care. It answers the question: What do I actually want done—or not done?
How they work together:
Picture this: Your patient advocate is standing in the ICU, and the doctor asks, “Should we continue life support?” With a living will, your advocate doesn’t have to decide what you’d want. They already know. They have your instructions. They’re delivering your message, not making their own choice.
Without a living will? Your advocate has to guess. They’re making life-and-death decisions based on their interpretation of your values—which may be incomplete, may be colored by their own feelings, and may not reflect what you’d actually choose.
Without a patient advocate? Your living will still speaks for you, but nobody has clear legal authority to advocate for those wishes when doctors have questions. Family members might disagree about what you meant. Medical providers might hesitate. Decisions stall when time matters most.
At Boroja, Bernier & Associates, we never prepare one without the other. They’re two pieces of the same puzzle.
Learn more about Powers of Attorney
What Your Living Will Actually Decides
The Medical Interventions Nobody Wants to Think About—Until Thinking Becomes Impossible
Let’s be specific. A living will addresses the interventions that can keep a body alive when the person inside may already be gone. These are the hardest decisions families face—and exactly the decisions where clear documentation matters most.
Mechanical Ventilation
A machine that breathes for you. Your living will can specify: Do I want this if I’m terminally ill with no recovery expected? If I’m permanently unconscious? If I have some awareness but can’t function independently? Different scenarios, potentially different answers.
CPR (Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation)
Here’s what television doesn’t show you: CPR success rates for elderly patients with serious underlying conditions are far lower than most people think—and “success” often means surviving in worse condition than before. Your living will can indicate whether you want resuscitation attempted and under what circumstances.
Artificial Nutrition and Hydration
Feeding tubes and IV fluids when you can’t eat or drink. For some people in some conditions, this sustains biological life indefinitely without any realistic hope of recovery. Your living will addresses whether you want artificial nutrition continued if you’re permanently unconscious or terminally ill.
Dialysis
Mechanical filtering of your blood when kidneys fail. Your living will can specify whether you want dialysis initiated or continued in end-of-life situations—another intervention that can extend life without restoring meaningful function.
Comfort Care vs. Aggressive Treatment
This distinction matters. Comfort-focused treatment (palliative care) manages symptoms and keeps you as comfortable as possible. Aggressive treatment aims to cure or extend life regardless of quality. Your living will can specify which approach you prefer in different scenarios.
Pain Management
Most people want adequate pain control, even if aggressive medication might hasten death. Your living will ensures that preference is documented and honored.
The scenarios that matter:
Well-drafted living wills distinguish between different medical situations because your preferences might differ:
- Terminal illness: A condition that will cause death regardless of treatment
- Permanent unconsciousness: Persistent vegetative state with no reasonable expectation of regaining awareness
- Advanced progressive illness: Conditions like end-stage dementia or late-stage neurological disease where meaningful recovery isn’t possible
You might want aggressive treatment for something that could improve. You might want comfort care only for irreversible decline. A proper living will captures those distinctions—instead of forcing your family to guess.
The Conversation Your Living Will Starts
Paper Alone Isn’t Enough
Here’s what most attorneys won’t tell you: the document itself matters less than the conversations it generates.
Your living will can’t anticipate every possible medical scenario. It provides guidance, not a script. Your family—particularly your patient advocate—needs to understand not just what treatments you want or don’t want, but why. The values underneath the choices.
Questions worth discussing with your family:
- What makes life worth living for you? What abilities or experiences would you refuse to give up?
- Are there conditions you’d find unacceptable—states you wouldn’t want to exist in?
- How do you feel about being kept alive when you can’t recognize the people you love?
- What’s more important to you: length of life or quality of life?
- Have you watched someone go through end-of-life care that shaped how you think about your own?
- What scares you more: dying too soon, or not being allowed to die?
These conversations are uncomfortable. Most families avoid them. And then something happens, and everyone wishes they hadn’t.
The families who handle medical crises best aren’t the ones whose loved ones had “better” living wills. They’re the ones who actually talked about this stuff—openly, honestly, before anyone was in crisis mode.
Your living will is the door to those conversations. Don’t just sign it and file it away. Use it.
Making Your Living Will Work: Execution, Updates, and Distribution
A Document Nobody Knows About Doesn’t Protect Anyone
Creating a Valid Michigan Living Will
Michigan doesn’t mandate specific formalities for living wills the way it does for patient advocate designations. However, courts enforce advance directives that provide “clear and convincing evidence” of your wishes. That means:
- Specific, unambiguous language: Vague instructions like “no heroic measures” don’t meet this standard. Courts and doctors need clarity.
- Your signature, witnessed or notarized: While not strictly required for living wills, proper execution prevents challenges.
- Consistency with your patient advocate designation: The two documents should work together, not contradict each other.
At Boroja, Bernier & Associates, we prepare living wills that meet the clear and convincing evidence standard Michigan courts require. Generic templates from the internet? They’re often too vague to provide the guidance hospitals and courts need—which means your family ends up guessing anyway.
Keeping Your Documents Current
Your living will should evolve as your life changes. Review it:
- Every three to five years, regardless of circumstances
- After significant health diagnoses
- After watching someone else’s end-of-life experience that shaped your views
- When your patient advocate can no longer serve (death, incapacity, relationship change)
Updating is simple: execute new documents that supersede the old ones. At Boroja, Bernier & Associates, clients can schedule reviews whenever circumstances warrant.
Making Sure People Know
A living will only works if healthcare providers can find it when they need it.
- Give copies to your primary care physician and specialists
- Give copies to your patient advocate and backup
- Keep one accessible in your home (not locked in a safe nobody can access)
- Consider carrying a wallet card indicating you have advance directives and where to find them
- Upload to your hospital’s patient portal if available
When you arrive at an emergency room unconscious, nobody’s calling your attorney. Your living will needs to be where medical staff can actually access it.
“But I’m Not Ready to Think About This”
The Objections Everyone Has—and Why They Don’t Hold Up
“I’m young and healthy—I don’t need a living will.”
Capacity can disappear at any age. Car accidents don’t check your birth certificate. Strokes hit people in their thirties. A sudden cardiac event can leave you on a ventilator regardless of how many miles you ran this week. Everyone has values and preferences about medical care. Age just changes the probability that you’ll need to communicate them soon.
“Having a living will means giving up on treatment.”
Your living will documents YOUR preferences—whatever they are. If you want every possible intervention in every possible scenario, your living will can say exactly that. The document doesn’t assume any particular choice. It captures YOUR choice. Full stop.
“My family knows what I want.”
Maybe. But can they prove it? Will they all remember the same thing when they’re exhausted and grieving and doctors are asking hard questions? Will the sister who thinks you’d want to fight argue with the brother who remembers you saying you never wanted to be kept alive on machines? Written documentation that meets Michigan’s clear and convincing evidence standard prevents those arguments and ensures your wishes control—not whoever argues loudest.
“A living will is the same thing as a DNR.”
Related, but not identical. A DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) is a specific medical order addressing only resuscitation attempts. A living will is broader—it addresses multiple treatment decisions across various scenarios. You can have a living will without a DNR, or a DNR without a living will, or both.
“Once I sign this, I’m locked in.”
You can revoke or modify your living will any time you have capacity. Your most recent valid document controls. Views change. Diagnoses change. Experiences change. Update your documents when your preferences evolve.
“This is too morbid. I don’t want to think about it.”
Here’s the morbid scenario: you don’t document your wishes, and your family has to make life-and-death decisions without knowing what you’d want, carrying that weight for the rest of their lives. Planning ahead isn’t morbid—it’s merciful.
Common Questions About Michigan Living Wills
At Boroja, Bernier & Associates, living wills are included in our estate planning packages—we don’t prepare them as standalone documents because they work best alongside patient advocate designations, financial powers of attorney, and your will or trust. Will-based estate plans range from $1,500 to $2,500; trust-based plans range from $2,500 to $5,500. Both include comprehensive healthcare planning documents. We don’t nickel-and-dime you for each piece of paper.
Yes. Michigan case law recognizes a patient’s constitutional right to refuse future medical treatment through written advance directives. When your living will provides “clear and convincing evidence” of your wishes, courts and healthcare providers honor it. Combined with a patient advocate designation that grants specific authority over life-sustaining treatment decisions under MCL 700.5506-5515, your documented wishes carry full legal force.
Technically, yes. But we see families struggle with these constantly. Generic forms often use vague language (“no heroic measures,” “allow natural death”) that doesn’t meet Michigan’s clear and convincing evidence standard. They may not address specific scenarios you care about. They may contradict Michigan-specific requirements. The cost of professional preparation is minor compared to the cost of a document that doesn’t actually work when your family needs it to.
Your living will documents YOUR wishes, not your family’s preferences. A properly executed advance directive, combined with a patient advocate designation, ensures your choices control—even over family objections. That said, having conversations with your family before a crisis dramatically reduces conflict. The document provides legal protection; the conversations provide family peace.
In limited circumstances. Michigan allows healthcare providers with conscience-based objections to decline to follow instructions that conflict with their personal beliefs. However, they must transfer your care to a provider willing to honor your wishes. In practice, this is rare—and having your patient advocate present to advocate for your documented preferences makes it even rarer.
Everywhere relevant people can access it. Give copies to your primary care physician, relevant specialists, your patient advocate, and a backup person you trust. Keep one in your home where family can find it (not locked away). Consider uploading it to hospital patient portals. Carry a wallet card indicating you have advance directives. A document nobody can find when you’re unconscious doesn’t protect you.
Revoke or modify your living will any time you have capacity. Execute new documents that supersede the old ones—and notify everyone who has copies of the previous version. At Boroja, Bernier & Associates, we recommend reviewing your healthcare directives every few years and after any significant health change.
When to Talk to a Michigan Estate Planning Attorney About Healthcare Directives
Some situations make the conversation more urgent:
- You don’t have a living will or patient advocate designation at all. Everything else on this page assumes documents that don’t exist yet.
- Your documents are more than five years old. Medical technology changes. Your views may have changed. Your named advocates may no longer be appropriate.
- You’ve experienced a significant health change. A diagnosis often clarifies what matters—and what doesn’t.
- You’ve witnessed someone else’s end-of-life care that shaped your thinking. Watching a family member’s difficult death—or a peaceful one—often crystallizes your own preferences.
- Family conflict exists around medical decision-making. Clear documentation prevents disagreements from becoming disputes.
- You used an online form and aren’t sure if it’s valid. Better to find out now than when you’re on a ventilator.
- You want help having the conversation. Sometimes a neutral third party makes these discussions easier.
At Boroja, Bernier & Associates, we don’t just hand you forms to sign. We have the actual conversation about what matters to you, explain your options, answer your questions, and create documents that healthcare providers will respect. That takes time. That takes attention. That takes actually caring about whether your family is protected.
Accountability builds trust. We do this work carefully because your family’s peace of mind depends on it.
Your Voice Deserves to Be Heard—Even When You Can’t Speak
The decisions documented in a living will are as personal as anything you’ll ever put in writing. They reflect your values, your definition of dignity, what makes life worth living to you. Those decisions shouldn’t be made by strangers in an ICU. They shouldn’t be made by exhausted family members guessing at what you might have wanted. They should be made by you—now, while you can think clearly and communicate freely.
At Boroja, Bernier & Associates, we help Michigan families have the conversations that matter and capture their wishes in documents that actually work. We take the time to understand what’s important to you, explain your options without overwhelming you with medical jargon, and create advance directives that give your family guidance instead of impossible choices. This is what protecting your family actually looks like—not just after you’re gone, but while there’s still time to speak for yourself.
Call Us: (586) 991-7611
Email: admin@bbalawmi.com
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Saturday & Sunday: By Appointment
Estate planning consultations available statewide—by phone, video, or in person at our Shelby Township headquarters.
