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Featured Hearings

2nd January 2025

If you’ve never watched a COP hearing before, scroll down this page (to below Featured Hearings) and read the steps under the heading “How to access a hearing”. If you’d like help, email us at openjustice@yahoo.com but we can’t send out links.

When contacting the court, you may like to use our template email (see point 3 of “How to access a hearing” at the bottom of this page). If you want to observe a hearing in the regional courts, why not to make a (free) CourtServe account? This blog should help you navigate the site.

How to use CourtServe

Note:

The Royal Courts of Justice is officially closed until 12th January 2026. There are very likely to be cases heard by an “urgent cases” judge but they will be emergencies only as they crop up and we’re unlikely to learn about them as staff won’t be listing them on the public cause lists. If we do learn about them, we’ll post them here. Other courts (so Tier 1 and Tier 2 judges at First Avenue House and in the regional courts) will be hearing a few cases up until 5th January 2026, after which they should be up and fully running again. We’ve pasted in couple of upcoming hearings below. Happy New Year everyone!

UPDATE THE HEARING BEFORE DJ MASON AT 11am has been vacated

Time and date:

Issues before the court:

Contact for access: To observe in person, go along to the court, leaving plenty of time to get through airport style security. To ask if a remote link is available (it might not be – this is an in-person hearing),  email: <courtofprotectionhearings@justice.gov.uk>. Put this in the subject heading of your email: “Observer Request: COP , “” The suggested contents of your email are included towards the bottom of this page, under the heading of “How to access a hearing”. If you don’t hear back by half an hour before the listed start of the hearing, chase by email with “URGENT” in the title.

Listing Information provided by: (click here) First Avenue House Daily Hearing List

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Case No:

Before:

Sitting at:

Time and date: 2pm, Friday 19th November 2025

Issues before the court:

Contact for access: To observe in person, go along to the court, leaving plenty of time to get through airport style security. To ask if there is a remote link, email: rcj.familyhighcourt@justice.gov.uk and cc. to rcj.familylisting@justice.gov.uk  Put this in the subject heading of your email: “Observer Request: COP XXXXX”. The suggested contents of your email are included towards the bottom of this page, under the heading of “How to access a hearing”. If you don’t hear back by half an hour before the listed start of the hearing, chase by email with “URGENT” in the title, and try phoning 0207 9477351 (though we don’t always get an answer!)

Listing Information provided by: Court and Tribunal Hearings (CaTH)

Case No:

Before:

Sitting at:

Time and date:

Issues before the court:

Contact for access: To ask for the remote link, email: rcj.familyhighcourt@justice.gov.uk and cc. to rcj.familylisting@justice.gov.uk  Put this in the subject heading of your email: “Observer Request: COP XX”. The suggested contents of your email are included towards the bottom of this page, under the heading of “How to access a hearing”. If you don’t hear back by half an hour before the listed start of the hearing, chase by email with “URGENT” in the title, and try phoning 0207 9477351 (though we don’t always get an answer!).

Listing Information provided by: Court and Tribunal Hearings (CaTH)

Case No:

Before:

Sitting at:

Time and date:

Issues before the court:

Contact for access: To ask for the link, email XX Put this in the subject heading of your email: “Observer Request: COP XX”. The suggested contents of your email are included towards the bottom of this page, under the heading of “How to access a hearing”. If you don’t hear back by half an hour before the listed start of the hearing, chase by email with “URGENT” in the title, and try phoning 0118 987 0500  (though we don’t always get an answer!).

Listing Information provided by: Courtserve

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This list of Featured Hearings is provided for people who may be unfamiliar with observing hearings in the Court of Protection. This is just a selection from about 20-30 hearings that are scheduled to take place across England and Wales each day. You can check out our Find More Hearings page for links to further hearings in the Court of Protection). We also tweet interesting hearings we know about, so check our X ( ex Twitter) feed (@OpenJusticeCOP).

Bearing in mind that many hearings in county courts are vacated, one idea – if you really want to observe a hearing – is to pick a judge with lots of hearings and pick a first choice hearing you’d like to observe, but say that if that one is vacated could you have a different one instead.

How to access a hearing

1. Check what hearings are listed.

2. Pick one you want to observe. In choosing a hearing you may want to consider (obviously) what time it is listed for, but also whether it is remote (i.e. video-platform or phone – phone can be difficult and many people find hearings on video-platforms much easier to follow) or whether you need to go along to the court to observe. You may also want to consider what the issues are to be addressed (this information is not always provided and can be inaccurate). Also consider the estimated length of the hearing – most are an hour but some can be much longer (and again we don’t always have this information). Note: Quite a lot of hearings are vacated or adjourned (i.e. they don’t happen) so it’s wise to have a second choice hearing as a ‘back up’ plan, i.e. one an hour or so later that you can ask to observe if you don’t get your first choice. If there isn’t one listed on this page, pick one from our Twitter feed).

3. If the hearing is ‘in person’ (some are only ‘in person’ and there is no video link) you can just go along. There’s no requirement to contact the court in advance – but we recommend that you send an email or call them to check that the hearing is going ahead. If you want to attend a hearing remotely, you need to send an email to the address given. Put the words “Observer Request” in the subject header along with the Case Number (copy and paste it to avoid errors) + the name of the judge.

Here’s a template letter you can send

“Dear Court Staff,

Please may I have the link to observe Case No. xxxx before Judge Y, at [time] on [date]. My reason for wanting to observe is to support the judicial aspiration for open justice and transparency in the Court of Protection.

I confirm that you have my permission to share my email address with representatives of the parties for the purposes of being sent the transparency order and position statements.

Please could you also alert the parties to my request for all the Position Statements relating to this hearing.  This is so that I can follow the hearing and to support accurate understanding and reporting of it. The court may be aware that there is new case law relating to provision of Position Statements to observers.  For guidance from Poole J see §36(1)-(10) in AB, Re (Disclosure of Position Statements) [2025] EWCOP 25 (T3) (15 July 2025).

In the event that the Official Solicitor wishes to respond to my request with their standard template refusal to disclose (or in the event that any other party declines to disclose) their Position Statement, please could the judge be alerted to this (ideally before the start of the hearing), and advised of my application for a direction that the parties disclose their Position Statements.

Thank you for your support of open justice and transparency in the Court of Protection.”

Make sure that you’ve included your full name at the bottom of the email.

4. They will send you a video-link (or phone you if it’s a phone hearing). (Sometimes we get no response to these requests. That’s why you might want a back-up plan!). Video hearings are either via MS Teams or Cloud Video Platform (CVP) (for info about how to use CVP, click here). (NB If you join CVP as an “observer” (which does seem the obvious thing to do!), you will not be able to switch your camera or your mike on, so the court won’t be able to see or hear you. This is fine, unless the judge asks you to confirm that you speak – e.g. to say you’ve read the Transparency Order. We’ve had cases where people haven’t been able to confirm this audibly to the court, so have been ejected from the hearing. We tend to join with video and audio ON and switch them off manually.)

5. Allow yourself plenty of time to get to the hearing. If you’re attending ‘in person’ you will need to allow time to get through airport-style security and find the courtroom. If you’re attending remotely, we recommend joining about 10mins before the listed start time, because you may find you have connection problems. You should join hearings with your mic and camera off – only turn them on if the court staff or judge asks you to do so.

6. We’re often asked “will I be expected to say anything in court?”. Mostly, no. But sometimes before the beginning of the hearing, court staff are trying to make sure they have everyone they need in the hearing and they may ask who you are (just say “I’m a public observer”). At an ‘in person’ hearing you are usually asked, by court staff, to fill in a form (before the hearing begins) with your name and address – this doesn’t happen with remote hearings because they already have your name email address. You may be asked to turn on your mic to confirm to the court staff that you are able to hear the proceedings. Occasionally, the judge asks observers to confirm that we’ve received and understood the reporting restrictions order (or transparency order): often we’ve not been sent it, so that’s quite useful and if we say ‘no’ the judge directs someone to send it!

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