Aim and Objectives
The seminar is designed in partnership with Solicitors for the Elderly Ireland. The focus of this seminar will be on the role of solicitors in resolving disputes involving the older client. A panel of expert speakers will be available to deal with questions.

Topics and Issues to be covered

• Rights of grandparents to access and guardianship: an update
  
• Safeguarding older clients: financial abuse
  
• Section 117 of the Succession Act 1965 - practice and procedure and recent developments

Chairperson
Padraic Courtney, Chairperson of the Solicitors for the Elderly, Law Society of Ireland

Speakers include

Mark O’Riordan, BL
Mark O’Riordan is a barrister specialising in the areas of succession, probate, equity, trusts, enduring powers of attorney, wards of court, and commercial landlord & tenant law.  He is a graduate of University College Dublin – BCL 1999 and LLM (by research thesis) 2002; and King’s Inns – BL 2001.  He was called to the Irish Bar in Trinity Term 2001.  He is a former legal researcher at the Law Reform Commission.  In 2008, he completed the English South-Eastern Circuit’s International Advanced Advocacy Course at Keble College Oxford.  He has tutored land law at University College Dublin, the law of torts at Trinity College Dublin, lectured in constitutional law at Griffith College Dublin, and has lectured on the Law Society’s professional practice course and its Diploma in Civil Litigation.

Teresa Blake, SC
Teresa Blake is a Senior Counsel. Teresa has been practising at the Bar of Ireland since 1995 in child protection and welfare law, asylum and immigration law, and education disability. She has been involved in many key cases in these areas before the Higher Courts. Teresa is currently Chairperson of the Mental Health Tribunal. She has a lone engagement with Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), representing various organisations to the United Nations human rights monitoring committees, and has been a member of the executives of the Irish Refugee Council, the Immigrant Council of Ireland, SPIRASI and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. Teresa has also been actively involved with groups dealing with disability rights and children’s rights. She graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a BSS, the National University of Ireland with an LL.M, King’s Inns with a BL and from the University of Nottingham with a Masters in Public International Law. Teresa’s first qualification was as a social worker.

Dr Amanda Phelan, National Centre for the Protection of Older People, UCD
Amanda Phelan is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing, Midwifery & Health Systems, University College Dublin and is the Associate Dean for Global Engagement, programme director for the graduate Gerontological programmes and co-programme director for the MSc Child Welfare and Protection. She is also the Co-Director in the National Centre for the Protection of Older People in UCD. Her research interests are in the areas of safeguarding adults and children, public health, discourse analysis, expertise in gerontological nursing and missed care in nursing. Her first book on elder abuse, International Perspectives on Elder Abuse was published in 2013 by Routledge and she is currently editing a second book on the same topic (Springer) as well as a co-edited book (with Professor Diarmuid O’Shea) on social gerontology (Cambridge Scholars). Amanda was an invited expert in the Citizens’ Assembly for policy on ageing and also served on HIQA’s committees revising the National Standards on Care of Older People in Residential settings (2016), Restrictive Practices in long term care and Safeguarding policy. Amanda is a member of the Board of Directors of Third Age and the National Safeguarding Committee and the Policy and Procedures Committee of Sage (Advocacy for Older People). 

Dr Adam McAuley, Director of Teaching & Learning, DCU

HOW TO BOOK

• To book by post, download and complete the B ooking Form
• For full programme information download the Brochure
• If you have additional queries contact the Professional Training team on Lspt@lawsociety.ie

* Applicable to Law Society Finuas Skillnet members