obtain informed consent. That can take time and there may not be that kind of time and it can also take time if all three for example have to reach consensus even if it's not litigious...simply to talk through the issues may take time and particularly if there is an attorney for personal care and power of attorney for property, those two may have inherent conflicts. The example I often give is making a decision about home care or long term care where there is a cost associated with it. The attorney for health care will be focusing on the wellness aspect and the attorney for property is focusing on the bottom line with discussion around how much is this going to cost? Is there a cheaper option? It's conflict that slows down the process. Mary- Here is a real life question for you. What happens if there is more than one person appointed and they do not agree with each other? Lisa- That does happen with some of the people that end up in my office. A big part of my business is not just drafting the document but helping family members who don't agree. There are really two categories of helping those and the first is actually looking at the document. What does the POA say? Sometimes, and it's excellent when they do this, they have clauses in there that anticipate disagreements and that's wonderful because that gives direction to the attorneys. One type of clause I've seen is what happens if the two people need a tie breaker which is a third individual and majority rules or sometimes the clause gives a veto power to one of the attorneys. Sometimes it can directly seek out mediation or a third party binding decision. I recently had a client who appointed her sons as the decision makers/ attorneys but in the event they could not agree they would have to ask her husband whose decision would be binding. That's one option. Of course the first option is to check the document and if it isn't then the attorneys have to sort it out amongst themselves whether that's talking it out, going to mediation or choosing someone they know. Sometimes as a last resort they may go to litigation. One could try to outrank the other by becoming the guardian but typically there are very serious circumstances only which allow that. Under the health care consent act, there can be situations where if the two attorneys cannot agree and this can happen for significant health care decisions such as pulling life support, it can be that the public guardian and trustee is called upon to decide and either the PGG decides or the two attorneys are finally forced to reconcile because they don't want the decision to be in the hands of someone who doesn't know their loved one. Those are sort of the two categories…look to the document and then otherwise do your best to figure it out and hopefully do it in a way that balances the wishes of the loved one and hopefully doesn't create a negative impact on the family because sometimes those can be the cracks that when the family falls apart and it's sad to see when those types of disagreements have such a negative impact on the families but they do. Mary- Thank you for that information, Lisa. What flexibility is there after a POA is signed to increase the number of people responsible? For example, what can a person do if they feel they should have been appointed or if you are appointed can you bring on another person to also be responsible? Lisa- The first question in there is the easy one. The person who makes the power of attorney can change anything at any time provided that they are still capable in a legal sense; referring to mental capacity, and as long as they have that capacity they can make changes. The harder question is for the person who was not appointed and feels they ought to have been, or somebody who was appointed and