Joy Chambers is fascinated by the workings of the mind and brain, particularly in how they age.
She has combined her legal training with psychiatric training to create a unique law practice specializing in problems of
aging. A particular interest is working with clients to create a method of asset management in case the client becomes mentally
or physically disabled. She is also an expert in guardianship, an area of the law in which demented or otherwise mentally
or physically disabled persons are granted a guardian to manage their money and/or health care decisions.
Joy produces and co- hosts "Maturity," which is aired at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesdays on channel 69 in
Alexandria .She appears frequently on television to discuss issues of interest to the senior population.
Joy Chambers earned her B.A. degree in l968 and her J.D. degree in l971 from The George Washington University. She
started attending classes in psychiatry and lecturing to medical students about the law at The George Washington University
Medical School in l990. She taught law and psychiatry at The George Washington Law School l994 to 1997, as an Adjunct professor
of law. She was a visiting researcher at the Harvard Law School in l992 studying the legal tools that can be utilized in addressing
problems that develop as we age.
Joy has wanted to be a lawyer since she was 13 years old. Her father was the sheriff of Mobile, Alabama.
She has been practicing law since she was 22 years old - over 30 years. Upon graduation from law school in l971, she was a
Reginald Heber Smith Fellow, working in the law reform unit of Neighborhood Legal Services in Washington, D.C., specializing
in tenant rent strikes. She became general counsel to the Housing Development Corporation, which utilized government mortgage
subsidy programs to build housing for the poor in the Washington, D.C. area. When President Nixon put a moratorium on government
mortgage subsidy programs (which moratorium was later declared illegal by the Courts), Joy enrolled as a Ph.D. student at
the University of London and the London School of Economics, studying housing finance. She was a member of the U.S. delegation
to the United Nations Working Party Session on Housing, Building and Planning in Geneva, Switzerland. After a year of study,
she returned to the D.C. area and became affiliated with a law firm (currently Drinker, Biddle and Reath) specializing in
housing construction. After that, she served as counsel to the House of Representatives Government Operations Committee, specializing
in government reorganizations. In the second year of the President Jimmy Carter's administration, she was appointed Deputy
Chief Counsel of the Economic Development Administration in the Department of Commerce.
She has been appointed to serve on the Governor's Commission Studying Guardianship. She has served on a
number of state and national bar committees studying issues concerning fiduciaries and seniors. She has served on a number
of civic commissions.
Joy feels very lucky to have found a legal specialty that continues to vitalize her .. Her
current ambitions include creating television programs geared to seniors and continuing to help her clients and learning and
growing through interactions with them.
Joy is also a professional jazz photographer, contributing work to national
jazz magazines and books devoted to jazz. She is an avid weekend warrior on her sea kayak and mountain bike. Her idea of heaven
is to load the car with kayak, bike and camping gear and venture to an unknown waterfront campsite.
