No5 Barristers' Chambers

Laura specialises in all aspects of medical law and is well known for her particular expertise in mental health law and ‘best interests’ cases. The bulk of her work is in the public law arena, and she is instructed in many judicial review applications in healthcare law, representing hospital trusts, local authorities, the Official Solicitor and patients. She also has vast experience of complex Mental Health Review Tribunal hearings (usually involving restricted patients), contentious nearest relative displacement applications, and habeas corpus applications brought by those detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 (as amended). Laura appears regularly for various parties in applications under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 for declarations of incapacity and best interests, including the Official Solicitor (such as a hunger-striking prisoner case, and one where a child Jehovah’s Witness urgently requiring a blood transfusion and blood products refused treatment). Her expansive experience in this area has included: two PVS cases in declaratory proceedings seeking the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment measures; permission to withdraw artificial ventilation from a premature baby suffering from severe myotonic dystrophy; and an application for the termination of a catatonic patient’s pregnancy. She also appears in cases brought by local authorities concerning the residence of incapacitated persons. Much of Laura’s work involves human rights, which was the focus of her doctoral studies at Cambridge, including cases challenging refusals to fund specific treatment. Laura undertakes inquest work involving psychiatric patients (such as an inquest into the death of a psychiatric patient against the Ministry of Defence in a week-long jury inquest into the death of a young learning disabled soldier). She also has expertise in cases resisting the disclosure of medical records and Data Protection Act cases. Recent cases include: R v South Region MHRT, ex parte B [2008] EWHC 2356 (Admin) (2008) ACD 91); R v East London & City NHS Trust, ex parte M (2009) (to be reported); R v Cygnet Healthcare & Another, ex parte BB [2008] EWHC 1259 (Admin); Sutcliffe v BMI Healthcare Limited [2007] EWCA Civ 476, CA.

Called 1996; Lincoln’s Inn. Laura regularly provides talks to solicitors and medical professionals. She has also lectured for the London Metropolitan University, training best interests assessors in anticipation of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards which come into force in April 2009 to plug the ‘Bournewood gap’. Some publications of note include: author of monthly case summaries for the Institute of Mental Health Law’s e-bulletin (see http://www.davesheppard.co.uk/); ‘Covert medication’, 158 NLJ, pp1066-1068, 25th July 2008 (article on the incompatibility between the covert medication of patients detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 and the statutory provisions on treatment without consent); ‘Mental health and mental capacity: the new overlap’, SJ Vol151, No45, pp1520-1522, 30th November 2007 (article on the application of Mental Capacity Act principles to detained patients); ‘The right to decide’, SJ Vol152, No12, pp14-15, 25th March 2008 (article on advance decisions and their apparent inapplicability to detained patients).

Conversational Spanish and French.

PNBA.

Sullivan Upper Grammar School; University of Cambridge (MA; Dip Law (Distinction); LLM; MPhil; PhD).