on a "hold," but now, legal consent to treat and continue to detain the individual (now known as the "conservatee") lies with the Public Guardian office. A temporary LPS conservatorship can last a maximum of 180 days. As the county superior court has direct oversight of LPS conservatorship matters, typically the conservatee is afforded court hearings (for status) every 30 days. Unlike other conservatorship hearing, LPS conservatorship matters/records are not open to the public. With 58 counties, the Public Guardian Offices and Superior Courts may interpret and practice differing methods of legal administration of LPS conservatorship. In general, all conservatees are appointed legal counsel (typically from the public defender's office), and during the course of their LPS conservatorship, they can ask for a series of writs and hearings or even a full jury trial to contest their detention and overall LPS conservatorship. It is not uncommon for a psychiatrist to conversely declare the conservatee is no longer gravely disabled. During the course of the LPS conservatorship, if the conservatee stabilizes and can thereby be discharged to the community, a psychiatrist can request that the LPS conservatorship be dismissed (for lack of legal support). During a temporary LPS conservatorship, it is the general duty of the Public Guardian Office to ensure the conservatee is properly cared for and that the conservatee continues to require locked psychiatric care. During the LPS temporary conservatorship, it is indeed the Public Guardian, not the conservatee, who consents to treatment and placement. A common way to understand this is to think of the relationship as that of a parent to a child - in that a minor child cannot consent to medical care. The same goes for the conservatee - in that the Public Guardian consents to his or her psychiatric treatment and placement. If during the LPS temporary conservatorship, the Public Guardian feels the conservatee will (for the foreseeable future) need to remain in locked psychiatric care - the Public Guardian can then seek to have the LPS conservatorship changed from temporary to general (also referred to as "Permanent" but this can be a misnomer as it is neither permanent nor indefinite). With the appointment of a permanent LPS conservatorship (approved by the court) - the conservatee is now under the care / authority of the LPS conservator for exactly 1 year. It is with a permanent LPS conservatorship that then the public (family /