Everyone deserves to face life’s final chapter with dignity, clarity and control. Compassion Legal—the End-of-Life Justice Center at Compassion & Choices—is the nation’s first nonprofit law firm solely dedicated to advancing patient rights at the end of life. Whether you are navigating your own care, advocating for someone you love, or seeking to shape the future of healthcare, Compassion Legal is here to help.
We are a team of expert staff attorneys and pro bono partners who work at the intersection of law, medicine, and patient-directed care. From medical aid in dying and advance care directives to healthcare refusals and systemic accountability, we ensure that your decisions are honored and your values respected.
Choose the path that’s right for you:
For Individuals & Loved Ones
For Attorneys & Professionals
If you or someone you love is struggling to get the care you want and deserve, we are here to help. Call us today, or use our legal intake form.
Note: We are not a general legal services provider. We focus on legal issues specifically related to end-of-life care and patient autonomy.
We’re ensuring that fully-informed patients are the decision makers in their own end of life care; that your decisions and plans are implemented.
We’re protecting and expanding access to existing end-of-life options and rights. (VSED, treatment withdrawal, pain management).
We’re ensuring fully-informed, patient-directed care is the prevailing practice of end-of-life medicine and healthcare and that you have access to all end-of-life care and options through your health systems and care providers.
Our experienced team of litigators work closely with our pro bono counsel to enforce and expand the rights of terminally ill people. Through our work in the courts, we fight to ensure that everyone can receive high-quality end-of-life care that is in line with their values, wishes and beliefs. In every case we are involved in, Compassion & Choices’ dedicated legal team prioritizes and seeks to advance patient-directed care.
A free resource for both ordained and lay faith leaders to bring thoughtful programming around end-of-life topics to their congregations.
For more than 30 years, Compassion & Choices has worked to ensure that people can make informed decisions about the kind of healthcare they want as they approach the end of life. That includes end-of-life options like medical aid in dying, a medical practice for qualified adults dying from a terminal illness.
Today, those choices face growing legal and political threats.
Living in sunny Naples, Florida, Janina Birtolo had a rewarding life and career as a writer, journalist, and actor. But in her 60s, she was diagnosed with advanced emphysema—a progressive lung condition—and developed symptoms so severe that she became depressed. Janina’s health deteriorated to the point where she rarely left her home. Managing her symptoms…
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PO Box 485
Etna, NH 03750
