General practice conference

Alison is a solicitor in the Law Society’s Policy Team. She previously worked in private practice, covering criminal defence, child and family work, before joining the Society in 2018. Alison supports the work of a number of the Society’s policy committees covering matters such as tax law, trusts and succession, property and land law, and planning.

Fiona worked in civil litigation for 12 years before joining the Law Society in 2003. She was appointed as Director of Professional Practice in March 2016. She has significant experience of answering professional practice queries and steering members through complex ethical questions.
With great contacts across the Society, Fiona can call on colleagues, accredited specialists and committee members. Her advice is clear, consistent and pragmatic.

Margot joined the Law Society of Scotland in 1999 after many years in private practice as a court practitioner undertaking both criminal and civil cases. Margot heads up the Complaints Investigation Team which investigates and reports on conduct complaints about solicitors. Margot also oversees the work of the Clerks to the two Professional Conduct Sub Committees; which make the decisions on the complaints. The Clerks instruct one of the Society’s fiscals if a complaint is referred to the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal for prosecution and Margot also oversees this part of the process.

Margot is involved with the SLCC in liaising on the categorisation of hybrid complaints, discussions regarding policy, process and the terms of the 2007 Act, handling complaints and the SLCC’s oversight of the Society’s complaints process.

Morna Grandison BSC Tep’s primary role at the Law Society of Scotland is to take on Judicial Factory appointments made by the Court of Session. Working in the area of complex fraud investigation Morna represents the Society on a number of forums, identifying fraud trends and threats and problem solving ways to combat issues arising from the latest threat landscape.

Graham has 18 years' experience in a wide variety of financial crime-related roles within the financial sector. This includes complex money laundering investigations, international sanctions violations and project work, along with fraud strategy, analysis and investigation. Graham specialises in using this experience to help firms implement robust, proportional and practical AML controls/risk management frameworks.

Laura joined Blackadders in 2006 after graduating from the University of Dundee with a first class honours degree and a diploma in legal practice. She was made Partner in April 2013 and has specialised in private client work for more than 10 years. Laura has been influential in growing the guardianship unit at Blackadders having developed a high level of expertise in Adults with Incapacity, dealing with incapable adults of all ages. In 2017 Laura became the 9th person in Scotland to be accredited as a specialist in Incapacity and Mental Disability Law by the Law Society of Scotland.

She is instructed by local authorities, throughout Scotland, to assist with their duty to make arrangements for financial intervention and guardianship orders. She also regularly prepares financial suitability reports for other firms of solicitors, in applications for guardianship and intervention orders. Laura also advises on, and prepares, Wills and Powers of Attorney.

Laura has a number of other roles outside of Blackadders that include being the course organiser and tutor for the Private Client course of the legal diploma at the University of Dundee, whilst also being a tutor and examiner on the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) Diploma for Scotland.  Laura is also a Director at Wave 102’s Help for Kids charity and secretary to the City of Dundee Burgess charity.

Sara Scott is a solicitor with 15 years post qualified experience (PQE) in a variety of private practice law firm and in-house legal (inhouse counsel / corporate counsel), risk, compliance, company secretarial and governance positions. Sara loves to innovate and create to help people, make things better and drive results!
Sara’s key strengths are powerful communication and technical skills, being highly proactive, creative and commercial and excellent project and stakeholder management. Sara is proud to have worked in a FTSE 100 company and a premier commercial UK law firm, to have carried out non-executive type voluntary work as well as consultancy project management work for a key industry body and to be a fledgling entrepreneur, running her own successful small travel business and blog in her spare time.