Alex Ruck Keene
barrister
39 Essex Chambers
Alex Ruck Keene is an experienced barrister, writer and educator. His practice at 39 Essex Chambers in London is focused on mental capacity and mental health law, providing specialist advice and representation, as well as delivering expert training for front line professionals. He also writes extensively in the field, editing and contributing to leading textbooks and (amongst many other publications) the 39 Essex Chambers Mental Capacity Law Report, the ‘bible’ for solicitors (and others) working in the area. He is the creator of the website http://www.mentalcapacitylawandpolicy.org.uk/, providing resources and expert commentary on some of the most difficult mental capacity issues.
Alex is a Wellcome Research Fellow and Visiting Professor at King’s College London, a Visiting Senior Lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London and a Research Affiliate at the Essex Autonomy Project, University of Essex. He spent 2016 on secondment to the Law Commission of England & Wales as a consultant to their Mental Capacity and Deprivation of Liberty Project and throughout 2018 was legal adviser to the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act 1983. In 2020-1, he was a special adviser to the Joint Committee on Human Rights for their inquiry into the human rights implications of the Government’s response to COVID-19.