Can I act as a 'legal representative' for a friend without being legally trained?

[PavlovtheCat]

In my job, from time to time i contact the courts to discuss issues with parking fines, council tax non-payments etc for my clients, i am not a legally trained person but call on their behalf as their professional representative, a 'welfare officer' as such. This is perfectly fine, legal, acceptable and expected in my role.

So, can i do this same thing for a friend? My friend has just had the bailiffs around for non-payment of parking fine, despite the fact they have disputed this for the last year. My friend is not great on the phone, he gets angry and upset and not able to get his point across well, and I am not sure he has explained the situation well to them, although i know his wife has written to them. I am not sure of the details yet, but will find out, and said that I would talk to the court on his behalf on Monday (with his permission obviously) to find out what has happened, and what course of action he can take now as the bailiff is demanding a huge amount of money in one go, not prepared to make payment plan, or listen to the fact that my friend is in dispute over this.

I think as long as you're just assisting him with this and liaising with others on his behalf, it shouldn't be a problem.

yes
its called a MAckenzie friend

brb pizza burning

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKenzie_Friend

are oyu off to mag court?
if so when you get there tell the usher that you are a "helper" adn that the person has probs expressing themsleves
mags will be DELIGHTED if it move things along ime

for eg squaddies often haev officers( for that read tim nice but tim types fresh out of Sandhurst) to help them when they fight and are in court

Ah excellent, so its like having a union rep or colleague with you for a formal meeting, excellent.

I just did not want to call up and say I am his rep, and be a fraud. I do it all the time with my job, but i state my profession and they are happy/relived to deal with me. I usually get things resolved(unless it involved bailiffs, then it makes no difference who i am, they are bloody rude and unhelpful regardless!) but not sure if it will be so easy if I am not calling in my professional capacity.

Roland - no, not in mags court (yet!) i am going to call them up on Monday for him. Find out exactly where the land lies, who has called on his doorstep, what they want, and how he can ensure his dispute was listened to/gets listened to now (I have however been to mags court in a professional capacity, i love it!)

It all evolves around his disabled badge but I don't know the details. Well he talked about it to me, but i cannot remember, it was a while ago!

Rolandbutter you are not allowed to speak on behlaf of a friend in the mags court. You can provide support by being there or speak as a witness but you absolutely cannot represent them.

pavlov from your OP it seems that you will just be making enquiries - this is fine although you may get into some difficulties with admin staff not being conviced you have the permission of your friend and therefore being unwilling to disclose the info to you.

However you must absolutely not put yourself forward as their "legal representative". You can get in a fair bit of trouble doing that (pretending to be a legal rep in Court for example is a contempt).

As long as you are open with all concerned as to what your role is then you should be fine. Good luck with helping your friend.

no but in rl it often happens - they explain stuff

Rolandbutter I have never seen it happen in real life and I have been in hundreds of mags courts all over the country. I would be very interested to know where you say it often happens.

I have however seen several bolshy friends/partners/parents argue that they ought to be allowed to speak on behalf of a defendant and the end result has never been pretty!

No usher or Court Clerk would allow it to happen and if it did the Mags - would be extremely pissed off not least because it invalidates the hearing and no court likes being appealed.

I am not at this stage going to court for him, but would if he asks/i was able. Would it be mags court for parking fines? or county court?

I will be asking my friend to call the court on Monday, and tell them he wants them to talk to me, pass the phone over. That is what I do at work to enable me to talk to the court office.

Do any of you know BTW, if a bailiff can remove a car worth say £4000 for a debt of £400, can they remove it from a registered disabled person?

(The parking ticket was issued because the time clock on the blue badge had fallen on the floor. The person who was writing the ticket when he returned from chemist to get a prescription told him he could/should appeal but he could not stop as the ticket was in the process of being written. My friend says he wrote 2 letters and got no response then was asked to attend court hundreds of miles from where he lives).