Gerard Martin QC addresses BABICM conference

December 2, 2021

Gerard Martin QC from Exchange Chambers was a guest speaker at yesterday’s BABICM conference – “Decisions, Decisions – The Way Forward: Supporting Capacitous Choices in Litigation and Beyond”.

This conference examined the challenges facing case managers, clients and legal teams when supporting clients who have capacity to make decisions in key areas that impact on their rehabilitation and aspects of litigation.

In a well-received address, Gerard considered the challenges related to the litigation process for legal teams representing clients who have capacity to litigate. He explained that some of these challenges may include where clients perhaps do not take the advice of the team for whatever reason, or fail to mitigate their circumstances perhaps by not engaging in rehabilitation or return to work, or are tempted to accept a lower than recommended settlement offer. Gerard also explored the responsibility of the team to the client in balancing protection as well as client choice.

The conference was chaired by Andrew McGowan, Head of Neurotrauma at Sintons. Other speakers included Patrick Boyd, Case Manager and Safeguarding Lead at Care and Case Management Services; Mobien Hussain, Senior Solicitor, Court of Protection at Irwin Mitchell; Dr David Todd, Clinical Neuropsychologist; Eilish Ferry Kennington, Associate Solicitor, Court of Protection Team at EMG Solicitors and David Hilton, Partner and Head of Court of Protection at CFG Law.