Why not represent yourself?

Today’s hearing was a successful substantive order review. My dietician client had sought advice from me about their HCPC matter before the final hearing of her case, and as a result, we negotiated a 12 month conditions of practice order for the significant record keeping issues relating to many clients over several months. The order was to be reviewed today, before a panel, to see whether the order should be continued beyond the 12 months. The aim at these reviews is to show that your fitness to practice is no longer impaired.

My client did not intend to be present at the hearing and instructed me to attend on their behalf. In my experience, it is almost impossible to be successful at one of these reviews if the registrant does not attend, and so reversing that decision was my first order of business. My client did attend, and having been prepared by me, gave very good oral evidence. However, an issue arose from the documents provided by the registrant’s employer, that we had submitted on the registrant’s behalf. It was an issue that I could see clearly concerned the panel and it needed to be remedied. I obtained a break in the proceedings and during the break, I contacted the employer and resolved the issue by the production of a further document.

The panel chair announced the review’s successful outcome for my client, and expressly referred to my client’s attendance and oral evidence, the additional document and my submissions as the three factors allaying the panel’s concerns and paving the way for the result we achieved.

In some cases it is possible for clients to manage hearings by themselves. But what I think is one of the most important things about representation, is the ability to respond to unexpected events - such as a panel having an unanticipated concern or a legal issue coming up or a witness saying something which is either really helpful to you or really damaging - an experienced representative can navigate such situations much more readily than someone with no experience of these things.

My client was pleased with my advice and my support and I was thankful that they were open to my help and as a consequence, got the result they wanted!