Family Rights Group | Parents’ Forum

Hi have a PLO meeting scheduled this week but my solicitor can Not attend as she is off on holudaya...should this be arranged for another date as social worker say they will go ahead without her??

Hi Anon 0381,

Thank you for posting. This is really urgent.

The pre-proceedings meeting is the last opportunity for you to discuss with Children’s Services what they still want you to do to care safely for your children so that they do not need to be removed from your care. You will normally be given a further 6 weeks to make necessary changes to keep your children safe, before Children’s Services applies to court for an order to remove your children from your care.

Has your solicitor contacted the local authority legal department about changing the day of the meeting? The legal department may be worried that the meeting is going ahead even though you do not have legal representation.

If your solicitor has tried to re arrange it but children services have said no, then you need to see whether another solicitor in the firm can attend with you.
Although children services have to show that they have worked with you to avoid going to court, there may be emergency reasons why they do not want to delay further. So the meeting may still go ahead.
It is really important to take urgent advice from your solicitor about this or if she is already on holiday, from a senior solicitor in the firm.

For information about the public law outline have a look at page 7 onwards of our advice sheet on care proceedings.

Best wishes,
Suzie

Thanks for your reply...another concern is that only now my partner is getting the letter for meeting which is for Thursday this week, leaving him with no time to arrange a solicitor with such little notice...I don't think it's a case of a emergency more a case of being awkward because it was 3weeks ago that cs had a meeting with their legal team to establish whether we met threshold for a PLO, I was aware they day after that we met threshold but only now am being made aware of the date... Thanks in advance x