Profile: Lynne Bradey

First, congratulations on becoming a partner and a mother – it has been a great year for you!

So, how did you get into law?

When I was very young, I used to try my granny for petty offences, it usually involved the imaginary scenario of her having walked out of a shop without paying for something, having to present her evidence to me and then I would decide if I believed her or not! I had quite an interest in the criminal justice system.

After that I wanted to do medicine rather than law, but as I progressed at school I preferred my arts subjects far more than sciences – so that’s how I ended up in law.

And into private client work?

I trained at a personal injury solicitors in Barnsley and came over to Wrigleys solicitors with four months left on my training contract.

As a trainee, I got into private client completely by accident. I was going to do criminal or family, but I went to the probate department as my non-contentious seat. I ended up with some really interesting cases, finding witnesses, putting together applications and so on, really niche stuff which I particularly enjoyed. I was actually the only person in the history of the firm to ask for an extra month from the probate department – and I got it!

I found private client work really interesting and liked the challenge of sorting out something that no one had been able to do.

How did you come to specialise in Court of Protection work?

I have a litigation background from my training contract and that translated itself into personal injury trusts when I came across to Wrigleys. I did general private client, but David Coldrick had written his book on personal injury trusts and I got more and more interested, started doing more work in that area and particularly enjoyed making things simple for people – for example when they had had a really long litigation, you can just condense it down to the simple essence and that made life much easier for them, such as sorting out payments for their new car and taking the pressure off them.

One day David asked if I would write a simple article for a local magazine – so I did. And then he asked if I would edit a little section of the care home fees book – so I did. And then somehow I found myself volunteering to do the 2nd edition of the personal injury trusts book with him and it’s gone on from there – I owe a tremendous amount to David!

Off the back of that comes the more specialised work – a lot of what I now do comes from solicitors themselves, either passing things over when they can’t do anything more or asking us to consult. Nowadays I really do specialise in vulnerable people, whether that’s those under 18, those who have lost capacity or those who have been injured, and sorting things out for them so they can move their lives forward either with trusts or Court of Protection (CoP) applications.

And the elderly client aspect?

It is a very heavy part of my workload. A lot of CoP applications are for the elderly and there are a lot of elderly who have been looking after their adult children and are really worried about what will happen to them when they go. Putting in place an appropriate will or trust and some proper back-up can make all the difference.

You write and undertake lots of seminars and master classes – is this something you enjoy?

Yes it really is. The writing is extremely tiring, you can get to the end of the day and you feel like you’ve just done an exam! Again, I think it’s making something that’s complicated, simple for people. It’s much more difficult to be simple than complicated and you need to really know your subject to be able to boil it down to the essence for people. Quite often, clients don’t want to know all the legal ins and outs, they just want to know what they need to do.

Also with the elderly, you often have to lay it out as simple as possible and make sure it’s understandable. You have to be ever so careful – there has been a great rise in people challenging wills and settlements, partly because the values of estates are higher, so it’s worth it. And people’s family situations are far more complicated than they used to be, so you have to be extra careful. You need to prepare for it as best you can, you tell the clients what might happen when they are making the will and you put as much evidence in place to deal with a challenge and then you sort it out when it happens.

What changes have you particularly noticed since the introduction of the Mental Capacity Act 2005?

Much of what the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) covers we were doing anyway, in particular trying to’ empower the client’. But the MCA raises a whole new set of issues. It’s brilliant that we are trying to empower people in doing what they can, but sometimes people feel they are tied in knots and don’t know what to do in the best interests of the client. As people get more used to it, it will sort itself out – you can actually take a much more pragmatic approach – but it certainly has changed the landscape but it will become second nature with use.

The formalisation of the CoP has made a big difference that has stopped those that dabbled in that type of work from doing so – you really do have to know your stuff and specialise in it to carry it out properly. People are now very wary of doing so. That can only be a good thing because the days of the old generalist dabbling in all areas are gone.

What are your favourite and least favourite parts of your work and your most memorable cases?

Condensing something technical into something very simple for the client and helping them to get on with their lives. Quite often it’s not about the legal work; it’s about building trust and sorting out issues that are very important to the client. My wonderful secretary Rachel would also say I have a very strong attachment to my dictaphone!

I love speaking to the profession – but only once I’m standing up there, not the five minutes before!

I seem to have to spend a fair bit of my time telling other people that they are wrong, usually judges or other professionals and that can be a little uncomfortable – and it doesn’t always go down very well...

There are two types of memorable case – those where you have managed to sort out someone who has had a really difficult time with lawyers and litigation and you end up having a really good ongoing relationship with them; and, those that fall into the ‘funeral’ category. I had a client whose ashes I nearly had to push off the edge of a cross channel ferry, for example.

Looking back over past year, which areas have you seen affected by the recession?

A lot of people aren’t making wills, they are seeing it as an unnecessary expense unless they absolutely need to, which will come back to bite them. Personal injury and CoP work are steady and if anything a growth area because they are always there and people need help with those situations. Some people have given up doing CoP matters, and private client departments in some places have tightened their belts so there just isn’t the slack to be doing bits and pieces.

It hasn’t hugely affected the areas that I deal with, but what I have seen is a much greater interest in cross-selling around the firms, something we have always done anyway. But when I have been out at conferences I get told all sorts of horror stories of firms where the private client department, the property and litigation department don’t speak to each other and some departments are sending work to other firms that could quite easily be done in-house because they don’t speak to their colleagues. And there is much more of awareness now of developing what you have got with existing clients, which is a good thing.

Which issues pertinent to elderly clients have stood out over the past year?

The way the CoP has become more formal has made a difference, it is more formal than people anticipated and that is something that a lot of private client practitioners are finding uncomfortable, as it doesn’t fit so well with what we knew. A lot have adapted and that’s fine, but it has made a big change which has become apparent over the past year.

The way local authorities are interpreting the Crofton decision ([2006] Lloyd’s Law Reports 168) and funding domiciliary care has really changed over the past year and hasn’t really been resolved – it is, frankly, a mess.

I have been noticing a lot of people making enquiries about means-tested benefits, more than usual which is probably just a product of the recession – there are people struggling and who perhaps have inherited something and want to know what they can do about it.

The regulations with the seven-day cooling-off period, where, if you are called out to see a client in their home, you have to give them a seven-day cooling-off period unless they file a disclaimer – that isn’t something that clients want to be bombarded with. They want you to go out there and do the (likely urgent) job, sort things out and give them peace of mind so they can get on with something more important like spending time with their family.

I can see why a cooling-off period might be necessary for some industries; but I don’t think it’s the most appropriate way to go about it for dying clients.

What issues do you envisage for the year ahead?

I think that we are going to see an acceleration of what firms have been putting off in the ‘boom’ years, which is becoming more business-like in what they are doing, asking why they are doing it and not just doing it because it’s always been done that way. Lawyers aren’t always the best managers and I think there is going to be much more of a strategic overview in terms of what they are actually trying to achieve.

I think the days of the generalist have gone and people are going to have to specialise more. I can see in private client that for the most part you are going to end up with either bigger departments with more specialists in or nothing at all. To keep up with everything that your clients want you to do, and to do it properly, is going to be very difficult for one person to manage on their own.

I’m quite excited about the year ahead – there’s a lot of development here and I really enjoy doing that. The area we are in is becoming more and more specialist and interesting, but on the downside my diary has become a creature that only my secretary can manage!