Floyd Porter receives Accredited Legal Representative status in the Court of Protection

Floyd Porter, partner and joint head of our Mental Capacity team, has been appointed as an Accredited Legal Representative in the Court of Protection with effect from 26 June 2018 by the Law Society of England and Wales as part of its Mental Capacity (Welfare) Accreditation Scheme. 

Floyd is the Chief Assessor of the Law Society Mental Capacity (Welfare) Accreditation Scheme.

This appointment highlights his additional expertise in mental capacity law. To become a member Floyd has had to fulfil separate exacting requirements to demonstrate high professional and ethical standards.

The Law Society anticipates that an Accredited Legal Representative will play an essential role in ensuring a client is at the centre of proceedings in the Court of Protection.  Among a broad range of duties, this will include:

• understanding and assessing a client’s personal circumstances, vulnerabilities, their needs, constraints, wishes and feelings;
• ensuring that legal advice is informed by appropriate legal and factual analysis, identifying the consequences of different options; and
• using a range of different communication methods and providing information in a way that vulnerable clients can understand.

The Court of Protection is responsible for applications under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 for:

• deciding whether someone has the mental capacity to make a decision for themselves;
• making necessary decisions on behalf of those individuals, including urgent decisions;
• appointing deputies to make ongoing decisions for people who lack mental capacity;
• making decisions about the scope and applicability of a lasting power of attorney or enduring power of attorney and considering any objections to their registration;
• considering applications to make statutory wills or gifts on behalf of someone who lacks capacity; and
• deciding whether an individual can be deprived of their liberty under the under the Mental Capacity Act.

For more information on how we support clients before the Court of Protection, we support clients before the Court of Protection, please contact Floyd Porter on 020 7426 0400 or email FP@milesandpartners.com.

The contents of this article are for the purposes of general awareness only. They do not purport to constitute legal or professional advice. The law may have changed since this article was published. Readers should not act on the basis of the information included and should take appropriate professional advice upon their own particular circumstances.