The Society of Later Life Advisers (SOLLA) has appointed Ian Macara as its newest Advisory Board member.
Established in 2008, SOLLA aims to help older people and their families find trusted later life financial advice. The not-for-profit organisation offers an accreditation that financial advisers can achieve to become specialists in working with older and vulnerable clients. The advisory board provides the Society support and guidance, including on the needs of SOLLA Accredited Advisers.
Ian, a SOLLA Affiliate Member, is a senior partner at JE Bennett Law, a specialist Court of Protection Law Firm. The firm’s core business involves empowering and supporting clients in vulnerable circumstances by acting as professional deputy or attorney or supporting lay deputies or lay attorneys. Ian and his specialist team are regularly approached to work collaboratively by many Local Authorities and other specialist professionals in this field such as other solicitors, IFAs and Care Consultants. JE Bennett Law also provides a range of associated private client services including Powers of Attorney, Wills and Probate/Estate Administration.
Ian is a very experienced practitioner in the legal landscape surrounding those experiencing the challenges of later life and finding themselves in vulnerable circumstances. He is one of just sixty of the Office of the Public Guardian’s accredited Panel Deputies and one of only approximately ten of their Public Guardians. He is a fully accredited member of Association of Lifetime Lawyers (formerly Solicitors for the Elderly (SFE), a fully accredited member of the Society of Trusts and Estate Practitioners (STEP), a Dementia Friend with the Alzheimer’s Society and a member of the Professional Deputies Forum (PDF). Ian is a Recommended Lawyer in the Legal 500.
Ian Macara says: “I am delighted to be joining the SOLLA advisory board. I have great admiration for the work SOLLA do and a long history of involvement with the Society, providing training, becoming an affiliate and now being invited onto the Advisory Board. As an experienced Court of Protection lawyer I am well versed in the challenges faced in later life with respect to financial and property affairs. I am accredited as 1 of 60 OPG Panel Deputies, as well as frequently acting as professional deputy, professional attorney and supporting lay deputies and lay attorneys with regard to financial and property affairs as well as related health and welfare matters.
The JE Bennett Law team are also experienced providers of private client services for those in later life such as Wills, Trusts, Powers of Attorney and Estate Administration. The firm's ethos of empowering and supporting those in vulnerable circumstances aligns well with the values of SOLLA and I'm really looking forward to starting work on the Advisory Board to help shape the future."
Peter Barnett, SOLLA Advisory Board Chair, says: “It is with great pleasure that I am able to warmly welcome Ian Macara of JE Bennett Law to the SOLLA Advisory Board. His wide experience as an accredited Panel Deputy for the Office of the Public Guardian, together with his longstanding experience as a practitioner in the legal landscape surrounding the elderly and vulnerable, will, I am sure, prove to be of tremendous value to both the Board and SOLLA more widely.
In the broader later life landscape, our members and their clients will have the benefit of the breadth of his significant and varied legal experience and specialist knowledge, including acting with and for the vulnerable and potentially vulnerable in managing their legal, financial and care needs and thus ensuring better choices and outcomes for consumers more widely.”
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For more information about SOLLA: https://societyoflaterlifeadvisers.co.uk/
For more information about Ian: https://jebennettlaw.co.uk/team/ian-macara/