Wills and Powers of Attorney

Pennsylvania and New Jersey Wills and Trusts Lawyer

At Joseph A. Gembala III, Esq. & Associates, we provide comprehensive estate planning service for clients in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. To learn how our experience and careful approach to your testamentary intentions can benefit you and your family, contact us in Philadelphia.

The last will and testament is the most basic of estate planning instruments. It dictates the disposition of the assets of your estate upon death, and can also provide for the guardianship of any minor children. Unfortunately, the terms and circumstances of a will can generate disputes among heirs and beneficiaries on various grounds, ranging from undue influence or lack of testamentary capacity to the assertion of intestacy rights on the part of excluded heirs.

Philadelphia wills and trusts attorney Joseph Gembala will not only advise you about legally effective ways to ensure that your assets will be distributed according to your wishes, he also knows how to avoid probate litigation through careful documentation of the circumstances surrounding the preparation and execution of your will. A video recording demonstrating your competence and understanding of your own testamentary decisions by itself is usually sufficient to discourage challenges to the terms of the will after you're gone.

At the same time as the will is drafted and executed, our clients usually also need medical and financial powers of attorney to cover the possibility that an accident or illness will leave them incapable of making their own health care treatment or financial decisions. We usually recommend that different persons be designated to assume these important decisions on your behalf under each of the two powers of attorney.

Not only will a carefully drawn power of attorney make your priorities and preferences clear, it will also avoid expensive and painful guardianship proceedings if your family decides that you need outside help with medical or financial decisions. Few family problems cause greater discord or pointless expense than a probate court action to appoint a guardian over an elderly parent's medical treatment or financial affairs.

A health care advance directive to physicians is the last essential component of a basic estate plan. Especially in Pennsylvania, where absent other instructions doctors are required by law to do everything possible to keep a patient alive regardless of consciousness or condition, a medical advance directive will specify the circumstances at which life support should end, according to your own preferences.

For additional information about wills and powers of attorney in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, contact elder law attorney Joseph Gembala in Philadelphia.