Anytime that anyone puts any sensitive information on paper, or in a computer, or tells anyone else there is some element of risk. But rational risks are essential, and she takes them every day. There is some element of risk in getting out of bed in the morning or taking a walk (she might slip and fall and break bones, or a small meteor may hit her on the head) but there is at least as much risk in staying in bed all day -- the risks of bedsores and atrophy.
Let's not get overly paranoid about the risks of identity theft.
If your mother is 65, I am sure that she willingly takes the risk that someone will capture her Social Security number when she sees the doctor or goes to the hospital and decides to have it covered by Medicare -- it's the same as her Medicare Number. She takes the risk of keeping investments with a bank or broker, as there is also risk in keeping her assets under her mattress. Yet, someone at her brokerage firm, or bank could steal her money -- they have all that information already. Or crooks (or the landlord's night staff) could break into the bank or broker and take that information.
The chances of any lawyer (or his or her staff or their cleaning people) taking the information and using it is far less than someone at the bank abusing her -- the bank employess have ready access to the same information PLUS knowledge as to how the bank operates and how to get money out the door.
Here are several suggestions you may want to follow:
1. As others have said, only deal with reputable people. When dealing with lawyers you can probably confirm that they are in good standing and have not been subjected to discipline on your state's Bar website.
2. For a Living Trust DO NOT let the "trust mills" operated by non-lawyers prepare hers. Many of those operations are nothing but thinly veiled attempts to sell high commission investment and insurance products to people, and the operators of many of them are the least respected insurance agents, or are professionals who lost their licenses such as brokers disciplined by the SEC or NASD, disbarred lawyers and garden variety con-men and scam artist.
3. She can have the lawyers prepare only the trust. She should share with them the value of her total assets -- it may be crucial for tax purposes as the level at which estate tax kicks in is $2 million on 1/1/2006. But they do not need account numbers or the names of the brokerage firms (although they do need deeds if changing title to real estate is involved). If she doesn't want to share the names or numbers, tell the lawyers to prepare BLANK letters of instruction for her to send to the banks and brokers, and then YOU make sure she fills in the bank or broker's name and numbers of her accounts and sends it, and confirm that the broker actually makes the changes she requests, as merely having a living trust is NOT enough. The assets must be legally transferred to the trust for the trust to own them and the trust provisions to govern their ownership, control and pass them to the trust's beneficiaries on death.
4. Ask the lawyers to consider putting in provisions that will require some strong elements of formality should she later want to make changes in the living trust, such as a combination of at least two of the following a) letter from a doctor stating that she appears to be of sound mind, (as people get older there is increased risk of adult dementia), b) a letter from an attorney to the same effect, c) a letter from the named beneficiaries to that effect, d) a letter from the named successor trustees to that effect, and most importantly, e) that any amendment or revocation must be acknowledged before a notary public. The biggest danger with living trusts is that a caregiver or other person can find it, then prepares an amendment that names the caregiver as trustee or beneficiary, and then tricks the trust maker into simply signing the amendment as if it were another paper. By requiring the formalities set out above, those dangers are minimized, yet it still can be changed.
