Sole and high street practitioners' conference 2018

Basil is a digital forensics consultant, owner of Strathclyde Forensics and the Manager of The Cyber Academy at Edinburgh Napier University.
 
He has diverse business experience in the UK and Greece, and has worked with organisations like IBM, Abbey National, Glasgow University, HM Government and Edinburgh Napier University.

Since 2009 he has been running his own business, Strathclyde Forensics, providing Expert Witness and Digital Forensics services, businesses and individuals, but mainly to the legal profession. He has been involved in several high-profile cases and has been providing customised CPD training to solicitors and other legal professionals in Digital Evidence, Cybercrime and Cybersecurity.

Through his position at The Cyber Academy he has provided training to the Chinese Government, including the Ministry of Industry and IT, and the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, as well as most branches of the Scottish Government on Incident Response and Cyber Resilience.

Basil is a regular speaker to universities (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Edinburgh Napier, UWS, Robert Gordon, SAN, American College of Greece) and conferences in the UK and abroad (Poland, Romania, Greece, Germany) and he has organised this year’s Big Data in Cyber Security Conference, at Napier University which attracted an audience of 250 and speakers from around the world, including the ITU and the FBI.

In the last year he has participated in several events of The Law Society of Scotland, has been working (and presenting) with INTERPOL’s Digital Forensics Expert’s Group, and has had over 20 awareness engagements that also include SYLA (Scottish Young Lawyer’s Association) and SPA (Scottish Paralegal Association).

Basil’s profile and contact details can be found at:

Edinburgh Napier 

Gail has over 30 years of underwriting experience, evaluating the risks and exposures created by professional firms. Her career began with RSA where she held a variety of positions within their Profin business, culminating in her role as UK Regions ProFin Manager. In 2004 she joined Novae where she was instrumental in establishing their regional PI and D&O business before her move to Zurich in 2007. Her role within Zurich immediately prior to joining Lockton was UK Head of Financial Lines.
At Lockton, her

focus is on risk management for the legal profession in Scotland alongside her client responsibilities.  

Callum Murray is the CEO of Amiqus Resolution, a purpose-driven technology company building software products that help make civil justice accessible to everyone. Amiqus was founded in 2015 after Callum experienced the civil court process first hand as a litigant and was motivated to help improve access to legal information and support.

Amiqus ID, the first online tool launched by Amiqus, helps firms to collect, analyse and manage anti-money laundering and compliance information. It is now accredited and recommended by regulatory bodies throughout the UK and has been adopted across multiple sectors. Callum and his team have picked up multiple awards for their work including Entrepreneurial Scotland's Rising Star of the Year 2017, Barclays' Regional Startup of the Year 2017 and Deloitte's Most Disruptive Startup 2018.

Jennifer Sinclair is the Best Practice Advisor at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission where she leads on sharing learning from complaints with the legal sector. As Best Practice Advisor, Jennifer uses that data to help practitioners and consumers understand how to avoid the most common problems and prevent complaints before they arise. Since being appointed to the role in 2015, she has developed a library of bespoke resources for legal practitioners on preventing complaints, dealing with complaints and the most common problems in specific areas of law. She has also developed a suite of consumer guides. Before joining the Oversight Team at the SLCC, Jennifer spent six years as a Case Investigator.  She has previously worked at the Law Society of Scotland and holds an LLB from the University of Edinburgh. 

Calum Shepherd is a Strategist and Product Manager who knows a thing or two about white knuckle moments. Are we building the right thing? Is this what customers actually want? Have we spoke to enough customers? Do partners understand what we are doing?

He is currently working with Registers of Scotland on ScotLIS, Scotland’s Land Information Service, as their Service Owner. He has also worked with Lloyds Banking Group and Scottish Government over the last few years.

Elizabeth has been advising on family law for almost 30 years. She has been accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a specialist in family law since 2005, having set up her specialist family law practice in 2002. She is a founder member and past Chair of the Family Law Association in Scotland. She writes and lectures on family law, and has commented on family law issues for The Herald, The Scotsman and on local and national radio. She has been invited to give evidence to the Scottish Parliament on family law legislation as well as assisting in research on family law matters for the University of Edinburgh, and the Scottish and UK Governments.

She is a child welfare reporter, a curator ad litem and reporting officer, and was a safeguarder for many years.

Grazia Robertson is one of two directors of L and G Robertson and Co, a firm of criminal court solicitors in Glasgow. She has spent her career in private practice working in small to medium sized businesses.

She is currently a member of the Law Society criminal law committee and legal aid committee.

Her other roles include tutor in the Diploma in Legal Practice and Slab Peer reviewer.

Interests include cycling, skiing and remonstrating with airport security personnel.

Austin Lafferty runs his own multi-branch firm in and around Glasgow, advising individuals and businesses on a wide range of issues. Austin joined Council in 2006, has been on numerous Law Society of Scotland committees and is the current convener of the Professional Practice Committee and was vice president of the Society from 2011-2012 and president from 2012-2013.

Retired at the end of March 2017 after 38 and a half years with BTO Solicitors LLP (formerly Brechin Robb and then Brechin Tindal Oatts).

Specialised in the area of professional negligence and in particular the defence of claims brought against fellow solicitors under the Master Policy but also against other professionals including Counsel, accountants, auditors, surveyors, insurance brokers and other financial advisers.

Member of the Professional Practice Committee and of the Practising Certificate Committee since October 2016.