WHY CERTIFICATION MATTERS
What is a Certified Elder Law Attorney?
Something in your life has changed. You need more than general legal advice, you need an attorney whose entire practice is built around helping families navigate exactly what you are facing. Someone who has earned the credentials to prove it.
Understanding the practice area
What Exactly Is Elder Law?
Elder law is an area of legal practice focused on the needs of older adults and their families. It is not a single subject: it is an interconnected web of legal, financial, and healthcare issues that often arise at the same time and require coordinated, knowledgeable guidance.
Because these issues overlap, it matters greatly that your attorney understands the full picture, not just one piece of it. For instance, a Medicaid application may affect an estate plan, a power of attorney, and a spouse’s financial security all at once. An attorney who handles Medicaid regularly but rarely touches trust design may miss that interaction, but a CELA would not.
A Certified Elder Law Attorney is highly trained and experienced across all of these areas:
- Medicaid planning and eligibility
- Asset protection and spend-down planning
- Guardianship and conservatorship
- Special needs planning
- Long-term care planning and funding
- Powers of attorney: financial and healthcare
- Wills, trusts, and estate planning
- Coordination with Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other public benefits
How the CELA certification compares
Think of the difference between a general practitioner and a board-certified specialist in medicine. Any physician can treat a patient; a board-certified specialist has passed rigorous additional requirements to demonstrate mastery in their field. The CELA works the same way.
How hard is it to become a CELA?
The CELA Certification Is Not a Membership. It Is Earned.
Before an attorney can even apply, they must have practiced law for at least five years and devoted much of their practice to elder law for at least three consecutive years, handling a minimum of 60 elder law matters across seven distinct subspecialties.
They must provide references from five attorneys familiar with their elder law work and complete 45 hours of continuing legal education specifically in elder law.
Then comes the examination: a rigorous, full-day written test with a pass rate of less than 30%. Attorneys who are highly qualified in only one narrow area of elder law regularly fail, because the certification requires both breadth and depth across the entire field.
It is widely considered one of the most demanding specialty exams in the legal profession.
CELA at a glance:
- 5 Years is the minimum amount of legal practice required before an attorney may even apply for CELA certification
- 60+ Elder law matters experience required across seven distinct sub-disciplines within the prior 3 years
- 45 hours of continuing legal education in elder law is required before examination
- Less than 30% pass rate on the full-day written CELA exam. It is one of the most demanding in the legal profession
To Put That In Perspective
There are more than 70,000 licensed attorneys in Pennsylvania. Approximately 70 of them are Certified Elder Law Attorneys. That is less than 0.1% of the bar, and fewer than three have a primary office in Chester County.
Do you need a CELA, or will any estate attorney do?
What the Difference Looks Like in Practice
For many legal needs, a skilled general estate planning attorney is an acceptable choice. But if your family is facing long-term care costs, a Medicaid application, or any situation where assets need to be protected under Pennsylvania’s elder law rules, the difference between a general attorney and a Certified Elder Law Attorney can be significant, not just in theory, but in real families’ outcomes.
Please note: These examples are illustrative and do not describe guaranteed outcomes.
Nursing Home Admission
The attorney didn't know what the nursing home's paperwork required.
A family hired a respected general estate attorney to handle their mother’s affairs when she entered a nursing facility. The attorney prepared excellent documents: a will, a trust, a power of attorney. What he didn’t know was that the nursing home’s admission agreement contained language that could have made a family member personally liable for the mother’s care costs. A Certified Elder Law Attorney reviews nursing home admission agreements as a routine part of practice. The family signed without that review.
The Five-Year Look-Back Rule
A well-intentioned gift became a Medicaid penalty.
A grandmother had been giving her grandchildren $15,000 each year, a common and perfectly legal estate planning strategy. When she needed nursing home care and her family applied for Medicaid, those gifts triggered a significant penalty period under Pennsylvania’s five-year look-back rule. The estate attorney who advised the gifting strategy wasn’t wrong, it was sound estate planning, but it hadn’t been coordinated with Medicaid planning. A CELA thinks about both simultaneously.
The Power of Attorney Gap
The document looked complete. The Medicaid caseworker disagreed.
A family presented a carefully drafted financial power of attorney when applying for Medicaid on behalf of their father. The caseworker rejected it because it lacked specific language required for Medicaid-related transactions under Pennsylvania’s rules. The delay cost the family weeks and required a return to court. A Certified Elder Law Attorney drafts powers of attorney with Medicaid requirements built in from the start, because they know what caseworkers look for.
The Trust That Created a Problem
A trust designed for estate planning became a Medicaid complication.
A couple worked with an estate attorney to establish a revocable living trust, a perfectly appropriate and well-executed estate planning tool. Years later, when one spouse needed nursing home care, the family discovered that the way assets were structured inside the trust affected the Medicaid application in ways no one had anticipated. Unwinding it cost time and money. A CELA designs trust structures with both estate planning and potential Medicaid implications in mind, because they know the two systems interact.
It’s important to reiterate that none of these attorneys did anything wrong. They did exactly what they were trained and engaged to do. Elder law introduces a layer of complexity that sits alongside estate planning, not inside it. A CELA lives in both worlds simultaneously.
Which do other planning professionals choose?
The Attorneys and Advisors Who Know the Difference Choose Kristen.
There is one question families rarely think to ask when choosing an elder law attorney, but it may be the most revealing: who do other attorneys choose when their own families need this kind of help?
Attorneys and financial advisors who work in estate planning, elder law, and care management understand the difference between a general estate attorney and a CELA better than anyone. When their own parents need Medicaid planning they don’t hire the closest available attorney. They hire the one they trust most.
Kristen regularly receives referrals from attorneys, financial planners, and care professionals who have seen her work firsthand and who choose her for their own families as a result. That is a different kind of credential than a certification. It is the judgment of people who know exactly what they are evaluating.
“Where do I even begin? Kristen is the most educated, thoughtful, thorough and qualified attorney to handle your estate or elder law needs. She is always just one call away and is always prompt in her responses. She has assisted many of my clients over the years and each one has always had raving reviews. She has protected them in proactive ways all while educating and communicating throughout.”
- Fellow financial professional in Chester County
Why Kristen Matthews Law
One of Only Three CELAs with a Primary Office in Chester County.
Of the approximately 70 Certified Elder Law Attorneys in Pennsylvania, only three have primary offices in Chester County. Kristen R. Matthews is one of them.
Kristen’s legal career has been devoted exclusively to elder law and estate planning. She holds a J.D. and an LL.M. in Taxation from Villanova University School of Law: advanced tax training that gives her a command of the financial structures involved in Medicaid planning that goes beyond what most elder law attorneys bring to the table.
She has been recognized as a Top Lawyer in Elder Law by Main Line Today every year since 2015, including as the #1 ranked elder law attorney in 2016 and 2019. She has earned the SuperLawyers Pennsylvania Rising Star designation, awarded to fewer than 3% of attorneys in the Commonwealth, from 2017-2024.
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