The Difference Between Asking Attorneys to Work Individually or Collectively

June 2025

If you’re thinking about making a power of attorney, you may have been struck by the many ways in which you can customise this kind of legal document to suit your purposes.

Not only are there multiple types of powers of attorney depending on the circumstances you may need it for, you also have the opportunity to determine things such as:

• How many individuals you would like to appoint to act as your attorneys.
• Whether or not you would like to include replacement attorneys.
• The kinds of tasks you would like your attorneys to handle on your behalf.
• Whether you wish to appoint a professional attorney.
• How you would like those attorneys to work together.

What are the options for how attorneys can work together?

If you are appointing more than one attorney, you’ll need to make clear how you wish them to work together. There are key legal differences here, and what you choose will determine how your attorneys need to work if/when they are called on to act on your behalf.

There are three options to choose between. You can choose to appoint your attorneys to work:

1. Jointly.
2. Jointly and severally.
3. Jointly for some decisions, jointly and severally for others.

If your attorneys are appointed under a power of attorney that requires them to act jointly, this means that all of them will have to agree on a single course of action before any of them are able to act.

If you give your attorneys the power to act jointly and severally, this means that they can work together when appropriate, but that each attorney will also have the power to make decisions on your behalf on their own.

If you choose the third option – jointly for some decisions, jointly and severally for others – this will enable you to decide which type of decisions your attorneys will be able to make on their own, and which they will need to make together.

Why give your attorneys the authority to act severally?

There are multiple reasons why it might make the most sense for you to give your attorneys the authority to work independently of each other. You can do this by choosing either the ‘jointly and severally’ option, or the ‘jointly for some decisions, jointly and severally for others’ option. Which of these two options you choose will depend on whether you wish your attorneys to make their own decision about when to work collectively or individually, or whether you want to make that decision yourself and entrench it in the document.

One of these options may be the right choice for you if you predominantly wish one person to act as an attorney, but have chosen to appoint a second attorney to provide support when needed. Giving these attorneys the power to work individually would mean that your main attorney would be able to make decisions on your behalf without needing to seek the approval of the second attorney.

Some people also choose to appoint separate attorneys to focus on different areas. How exactly this would work depends on your personal preferences, but some people may wish to appoint one attorney to handle their daily living and medical affairs, and another to handle their property and financial affairs. Giving these attorneys permission to act individually would mean that they could both make the relevant decisions within their own remit without needing to seek agreement from the other.

If you appoint attorneys to work jointly and severally, this can help to avoid any unnecessary delays in the event that one attorney becomes unable to act, whether temporarily or permanently. This can also be beneficial in an urgent situation, as one attorney would be able to make a quick decision – such as consenting to emergency healthcare – without needing to take the time to consult the other attorneys.

 Why ask your attorneys to act jointly?

Alternatively, you may wish to ask your attorneys to act together. In these situations, any decision would require explicit consent from all the attorneys you have appointed. This can introduce checks and balances to the process, if that’s something you think would be appropriate.

This might be because you wish to ensure that all the attorneys you have appointed will have an equal say in any decisions that are made for you. Perhaps this is because you think the individuals involved will work best if all opinions are heard, or it may be because you are asking them to make financial decisions that they all have a long-term stake in (e.g. if you have appointed your adult children to manage your finances, which they are all set to inherit an equal share of).

Of course, in situations like these, you will need to be sure that the attorneys you appoint are able to work well together. If there are likely to be disagreements, appointing attorneys to act collectively could result in no decisions being made at all.

It’s also important to understand that if you appoint your attorneys to work jointly and one of them dies or becomes unable to act, then your power of attorney will automatically be cancelled. The only exception to this is if you have appointed at least one replacement attorney.

Determining the best option for you

There are no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ options here, just the choice that will work best for you and your situation.

If you’re not sure whether to appoint attorneys jointly, jointly and severally, or jointly for some decisions and jointly and severally for others, we’d recommend talking your options through with a specialist legal professional. They will be able to set out the legal ramifications of each option, and what they might mean for you in practice.

If you’d like to read more about making a power of attorney, you can read about which type of power of attorney might be right for you here.