In-house annual conference 2019

For the last 20 years Bruce has operated as a GC or equivalent, CEO or Board Director or Chair (though considers himself far too young to have done anything for 20 years). He has amassed a very broad range of legal and organisational experience both strategically and at the coal face. He is passionate about supporting those earlier in their careers. For more than a decade he has regularly facilitated at LBC Wise Counsel’s unique and transformational in-house talent development programme.　

Some career highlights are: Lord President’s Legal Secretary; Deputy Keeper of RoS; Head of part of Rural Affairs; Chair of thinkWhere Ltd; Office Bearer in the WS Society; CEO of BSAS; and currently CEO of Storas Uibhist. And of course President of the Law Society of Scotland.

Christopher Morgan is the Group General Counsel for Arnold Clark Automobiles Limited, one of the UK’s most successful privately owned companies. Christopher is responsible for all legal, regulatory, compliance and governance matters at Arnold Clark.

Before joining Arnold Clark, Christopher was the General Counsel & Company Secretary for the Weir Group PLC and before that, the General Counsel of Balfour Beatty’s Rail Division, based in London. He has previously held legal roles with Honda Motor Company both in Europe and Japan and with British Airways.

He trained as a solicitor in Glasgow and is both Scottish and English qualified, as well as passing the New York state Bar.

Stefano qualified in September 2001 after an in-house traineeship at RBS. He worked in various in-house and private practice roles before joining the Litigation Department at the NHS Central Legal Office in 2007. Stefano has been at the CLO ever since and is currently Team Leader of a new general litigation team within the Litigation Department. In 2018, he took on the role of Product Owner for the CLO in relation to the wider Digital Transformation programme of NHS National Services Scotland.

The main focus of Stefano's work has been and remains in relation to Medical Negligence Law and he is an accredited specialist by the Law Society of Scotland in this area. He is the most senior solicitor in the CLO’s Digital Innovation Team, which seeks to promote and expand the use of digital technologies and solutions by staff at the CLO.

Euan is a Partner who advises clients in all areas of employment law, in contentious and non-contentious matters. He leads the Employment Energy Sector and Corporate Immigration practices and manages key client relationships. He regularly advises blue-chip companies and public sector organisations on executive recruitment and termination, organisational change programmes, TUPE strategies, contract drafting, interpretation, industrial actions and collective employee relations.
He has represented clients before Employment Tribunals and Employment Appeal Tribunals in Scotland and England, in a wide range of cases including unfair dismissal and discrimination. He has designed and delivered effective training programmes for employees on employment law issues. Euan is recognised as an expert in his field and regularly speaks at conferences for employment lawyers. He is a member of the Employment Law Group and CIPD.

Duncan is a partner in the Technology Media and Telecommunications Team at CMS Edinburgh.  

Duncan specialises in information technology, intellectual property, data protection and commercial contracts.  His experience includes drafting and negotiating complex IT and commercial contracts, including outsourcing agreements, software development and licensing agreements and software as a service contracts.  Duncan also has extensive experience advising on the IT, IP and data protection aspects of M&A transactions.

Catriona Garcia-Alis is a Senior Associate in the Disputes Team at CMS in Edinburgh.

Alison left private practice in 1997 to become an in-house lawyer at the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA). She has been there ever since, becoming Head of Legal in 2017. She is a United Kingdom Environmental Law Association Council member and, until recently, was a member of the Law Society of Scotland’s Environmental Law Sub-Committee.

Stephen spent several years in private practice with McGrigors LLP’s IP team before joining A.G. BARR’s in-house legal team in 2012. He has been Legal Counsel since April 2018. He advises the business on a range of legal matters with a particular focus on brand protection. He loves brands - especially A.G. BARR's. He apologises in advance to anyone who doesn’t like the reformulated IRN-BRU.

Lindsay started her legal career as an in-house lawyer with Stirling Council, which included a six months secondment to a large private sector firm. She then took up legal roles in professional regulation, working as the Head of Fitness to Practice for GTC Scotland and the Head of Hearings for SSSC. Lindsay is now the Monitoring Officer and Service Manager for Legal and Governance at Clackmannanshire Council.

Frances heads the non-contentious legal team at The Ardonagh Group, a family of leading businesses spanning the insurance distribution chain. Prior to this, she was responsible for advising Tesco’s Group Food division, covering the UK, Ireland and Central Europe. Before going in house, Frances was a corporate/M&A specialist at Clifford Chance and Latham & Watkins in London, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, including a secondment acting as sole legal counsel for Mondelez International’s Middle East and North Africa business.