Appointment of Official Solicitor - 2 new Practice Directions

9th July 2021 the UK government released 2 new Practice Directions for the process for the appointment of Official Solicitor as litigation friend for:

a) someone lacking capacity to conduct personal welfare proceedings and

b) for the person concerned for property and financial affairs proceedings in the Court of Protection

a) Welfare

This contains information and guidance around:

• appointing the Official Solicitor as litigation friend for someone lacking capacity to conduct personal welfare proceedings
• the proceedings that the Official Solicitor is usually invited to act in, including cases that involve serious medical treatment
• the Official Solicitor’s criteria for consenting to act as litigation friend
• how to invite the Official Solicitor to act in these kinds of proceedings

This practice note also contains details of how to contact the Official Solicitor, including out of hours applications relating to urgent medical treatment issues.

Here is a link to where you may download it: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/appointment-of-the-official-solicitor-in-welfare-proceedings-practice-note?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications&utm_source=2bf1f0a5-8a23-449b-88ef-dbf6736d78d3&utm_content=daily 

b) Property & Financial Affairs

This contains information and guidance around:

• appointing the Official Solicitor as litigation friend for the person concerned for property and financial affairs proceedings in the Court of Protection
• requests from the court for the Official Solicitor to act as, or appoint counsel to act as, an advocate to the court
• the Official Solicitor’s normal criteria for accepting appointment in this type of proceedings
• how to contact and send documents to the Official Solicitor
• urgent cases

Here is a link to where you may download it: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/appointment-of-the-official-solicitor-in-property-and-affairs-proceedings-practice-note?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications&utm_source=78193e4f-bfa6-47df-9df3-553ea0df5f6b&utm_content=daily

We are not giving legal advice, but as providers of business support to law firms, we thought this information might be of some assistance to some of our clients. For more info about our services please visit our website: www.hunningsconsultancy.co.uk or contact Ingemar at [email protected] or on 07887 524507