I find it very interesting that whilst the outage of Marks & Spencer’s website due to a data hack made front line news a number of times, there has been zero mention of a website outage that is actually far more important: the Legal Aid Agency’s online portal. Both happened at very similar times. NotContinue reading “What didn’t make the news – the trouble with legal aid right now”
Tag Archives: court process
Anticipatory declarations: a pragmatic view
You may or may not have read some of the reports about the Leicestershire case in which the court confirmed it does have jurisdiction to make anticipatory declarations. Such declarations are generally sought in situations where P has capacity at the relevant time, but a loss of capacity is expected and there is a needContinue reading “Anticipatory declarations: a pragmatic view”
Wishes and feelings statements: getting to know P
I am often asked by family members how the Official Solicitor and the court can make decisions about P without knowing them. More often than not, this is followed by comments about how they know P best so they should be able to make all of P’s decisions. That follow up is problematic, for aContinue reading “Wishes and feelings statements: getting to know P”
Will the hearing be vacated? Too many variables to factor in
I’m regularly asked if hearings are going to go ahead many weeks before that hearing is listed. And I’m often surprised that people don’t understand why it is too soon to give any answer that isn’t “yes”. So I’m going to explore that a bit. For anyone that is regularly involved in Court of ProtectionContinue reading “Will the hearing be vacated? Too many variables to factor in”
Making the public body’s point for them: what not to do as a family member in the Court of Protection – part 2
In my last post, I gave an example of S and T. S is the subject of Court of Protection proceedings and T, her mother, does not agree with the decisions being made by professionals and wants S to move to a different placement. In that scenario, T’s behaviour gave the judge little option butContinue reading “Making the public body’s point for them: what not to do as a family member in the Court of Protection – part 2”
Making the public body’s point for them: what not to do as a family member in the Court of Protection – part 1
Despite the great work being done to improve transparency within the court of protection it is still largely misunderstood. Where this lack of understanding comes to the forefront, in my line of work anyway, is when P’s family members are parties to proceedings. For a variety of reasons, mainly due to the poor state ofContinue reading “Making the public body’s point for them: what not to do as a family member in the Court of Protection – part 1”
Discussing care plans within court proceedings: part 1 – the broad brush
I am surprised by how often with my job I find myself in a situation where everyone round the table has a different idea of what the court’s role is when discussing care planning. I am talking predominantly about cases where there is some kind of dispute about a care plan, for example, where thereContinue reading “Discussing care plans within court proceedings: part 1 – the broad brush”
Office conversations on accessible information
I have been fortunate enough to be involved in some work about making legal information more accessible to non-legal professionals, particularly those who might have additional difficulties in understanding this information. Lawyers are traditionally quite wordy people, and there are a large number of lawyers out there who tend to speak in the way thatContinue reading “Office conversations on accessible information”
About face: changing your position during Court of Protection proceedings part 3
This is the third post in a series about changing your mind during Court of Protection proceedings. If you’ve not read parts 1 and 2, feel free to do so. But I’ll briefly recap the scenario too. Essentially, my client was in a care home, suffering from dementia and objecting to her residence there. HerContinue reading “About face: changing your position during Court of Protection proceedings part 3”
About face: changing your position during Court of Protection proceedings – part 2
In this series of posts, I’m exploring how to approach a situation if, during Court of Protection proceedings, the professionals views about what I’d viable or what is in P’s best interests. It happens sometimes, and it’s inconvenient and difficult to navigate. But not impossible to achieve. I’m using an example from my recent casesContinue reading “About face: changing your position during Court of Protection proceedings – part 2”