Since the pandemic, many clients (and indeed, many professional firms) expect remote meeting options, merely as a matter of convenience. It is easy to sacrifice face-to-face meetings for the mutual convenience of the relevant parties and, in many cases, such remote meetings can be efficiently and safely conducted.

What about the less technologically sophisticated client or clients who are vulnerable for reasons such as age, ill health, disability and so on? What might we miss by not being physically in the same room to build rapport, observe body language and other cues, and assess the appropriateness of interactions, freedom from influence from others and other aspects of best practice? For example, it is recognised that clients with declining cognitive capacity may present a ‘social façade’ that gives an impression of capacity and competence to provide instructions or to understand legal concepts that is not always easy to detect. Remote meetings supported by technology may not afford the advisor the same opportunity to assess capacity and identify any problems as a face-to-face meeting with a client, either alone or with an appropriate support person.

When conducted by an experienced practitioner, skilled in identifying visual cues, appropriateness of language, responsiveness and interactions, capacity assessment in an interview can be a seamless process. The interviewee may well not even notice the assessment of capacity is taking place. The process is far less efficient when conducted remotely. Junior practitioners benefit significantly from observing face-to-face client interviewing processes and capacity assessment techniques in person, and making their own observations that simply cannot be as easily made via remote processes.

Although there is certainly a place for, and value in, remote meetings and the ability to connect with geographically distant clients, there is a significant benefit (where vulnerable clients are concerned) in face-to-face, in-person meetings, which some firms will always prefer. Junior practitioners will likely benefit more from the process; less technologically sophisticated parties will appreciate the personal interaction; and vulnerable parties may be more easily assisted, with the risk of client vulnerabilities not going undetected and a minimisation of impediments to providing competent instructions.