Wollens

Private Client Department

Partner in the Private Client Department

Katrina has been a solicitor since 1996 with partnership experience in a leading firm in London, she then joined Wollens in 2007 and became a partner  in 2009.  She led the very successful and well regarded Private Client Department between 2009 and 2023 when she decided it was time to return to a more client facing role.

Katrina principally assists people who lack the mental capacity to manage their own affairs, either through illness, disability or acquired brain injury. She is a specialist in all matters relating to the Mental Capacity Act 2005.

Katrina's expertise includes Court of Protection and office of the Public Guardian work, powers of attorney and related matters, and advising and assisting clients in relation to health care and welfare issues both in a care home and in their own home. She also gives advice on state/local authority support and funding, including applications for NHS continuing care fees, and challenging decisions where necessary. She act as an attorney or as a Court appointed deputy as well as advising those applying for their own appointment. As deputy Katrina manages the property and financial affairs of those people who lack the mental capacity to manage these matters themselves. She acts as deputy and as attorney in relation to health and welfare matters where necessary.

Katrina is one of a limited number of professionals in England and Wales to have been appointed to the Office of the Public Guardian’s panel of last resort deputies. She acts as deputy in complex matters including disputes, or where there has been a necessity to revoke a power of attorney.  She is appointed in cases where there is no suitable person to act as a deputy, including disputes about who should be appointed as deputy. Additionally, Katrina advises clients and deals with a full range of Court of Protection applications which include applying for gifts, statutory wills, welfare decisions – all of which may be contested.

Although her chosen field is in the area of Mental Capacity law, she has significant experience in the administration of estates – including complex and high value matters, as well as intestacies and foreign aspects of estate administration. Katrina has similarly vast experience in preparing and advising on wills.  As well as her deputyship work, she acts as a professional executor, administrator, attorney, and trustee.

Katrina is a full member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners and of Solicitors for the Elderly. She is also a full member of the Association of Contentious Trust and Probate Specialists and the Professional Deputies Forum.

Katrina has a Master’s Degree in Mental Health Law.

Katrina likes to spend her spare time taking on more and more difficult cycling challenges, bouldering, travelling and walking with her dogs.