Lisa- So there are actually a number of reasons why you might want to have more than one person appointed as the attorney and they really fall into two categories. One is really for your own benefit and the other is for the benefit of the person or people that you're appointing. So in terms of your own benefit, when you look at the skills of the people or person you are appointing, it may be that some people are more suited to making personal care decisions and others might be more suitable to make financial decisions under a power of attorney for property. So it could be beneficial to appointment more than one or two people to address the different skill sets that you may need because as you've mentioned in other podcasts, there's a poa for personal care and a poa for property and you want to make sure the people you've named have the skills and abilities to carry out your decisions. The alternative is to appoint one person under each of those power of attorneys so the person who has the personal care skills, maybe who is a health care professional or more comfortable with medical terminology or being involved in those kinds of decision and then one person who has the skills to manage your finances. So that's for your own benefit to make sure that you've got the right skills set. I've actually done that for myself. I've appointed my husband but then after that I've appointed my mother under my personal care power of attorney substitute and my father for my power of attorney over property because he's a charter accountant so based on their skill set that's what I found would work for me. The other benefit is practically there are checks and balances. If you do appoint more than one person it's less likely that one person will try to take advantage. Weall like to think that one person we are appointing is trustworthy but I've seen in my practice that that isn't always the case so having more than one person can increase the chance that our decisions will be followed, money will not be used inappropriately or stolen. Then the second set is for the benefit of your family… because being an attorney can be a very busy job and it can be a burden so sometimes having more than one person to attend appointments or sign cheques can make the job a little easier. I have one client who was very concerned about the burden she was creating because her daughter has a young family of her own so she wanted to try and structure her affairs in a way that wouldn't be too time consuming for her daughter. Finally multiple attorneys can be useful in terms of perception of fairness. Definitely when we choose one person and exclude another, in particular this is true in the case of a parent choosing one child, there can be a perception of unfairness so for some people they want to choose multiple attorneys so that nobody feels left out and that inclusiveness can avoid fighting at the outset. Mary- Okay then that's very interesting. What are the risks of appointing more than one person? Lisa- That's a great question because where there are benefits there are often risks or pitfalls and sometimes the benefits outweigh the risks and sometimes they don't. It's definitely important to think through the risks as well. Some of the risks are actually for the attorneys themselves depending on how the power of attorney is drafted, it may be that one attorney is able to make decisions without permission from the other and I mentioned there can be a benefit but the flip side is that somebody could be making decisions or taking actions that may expose the other attorney to liability. Also, if there's more than one person if they don't agree it can cause family conflict or litigation can arise from that so if they don't agree that can be very challenging whereas one person has the freedom to make decisions on their own. The other risk is delay. Practically, even if everyone agree it can take time for example, the hospital could have to make three calls in order to get authorization for a treatment to