Supporting our members to thrive

LawscotTech
We will lead the conversation on legaltech in Scotland through LawscotTech, which brings together the profession, technology providers, academia and other stakeholders including cross-border regulators.

The LawscotTech Advisory Board underwent a complete overhaul, with new positions including the chair and vice chair, brought in to meet the evolving demands of its work. Two strategic planning sessions took place, and the outcomes will extend into the 2023/24 practice year. We updated our guides in collaboration with other Law Society committees and have been actively partnering with the Society's CPD team to create new legaltech courses.

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Support our members and their teams in practice
We will reassess our suite of services and guidance to ensure that they meet the demands of our members and the legal sector, including business resilience, use of technology, and health and wellbeing.

As part of our overall review of services and guidance for members, we have reviewed 12 pieces of Guidance, Advice and Information. We agreed a contract with a new Journal publisher from January 2024 which saw content being sent to members on a weekly basis instead of monthly. We developed new guides to assist members, covering electronic signature updates, how to create a wellbeing strategy for firms and organisations of any size, and we updated our GDPR guide. We reviewed our member benefits portfolio ensuring that we continue to deliver valued services and support.

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CPD & Training
We will continue to evolve our successful programme of
continuous professional development (CPD) and training, by growing content and introducing more hybrid options to support both online and in-person learning and development.

We held eight certification courses alongside two re-certification courses. Our Annual Conference ran over four days from 9-12 October, with three days of online content and a hybrid in-person event on the final day. The conference attracted 608 registrations over the four days. Our Legal Tech Conference attracted 522 registrations, and was one of three hybrid conferences this year. We ran a total of 148 courses, including the addition of 12 new essential skills courses. We also introduced an "O Shaped" TCPD model tailored for in-house trainees. There were 7,200 member engagements over the course of the year.

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Member engagement
We will maintain a two-way dialogue with members through our engagement programme, ensuring that we understand the effectiveness of our work and the challenges facing the legal profession

We organised 21 Meet the President events in total, covering all constituencies. These have been rebranded as Member Forums for the 2023/24 practice year. As part of our Council engagement programme we also facilitated four Faculty Leaders Forums, conducted online legal service review information sessions, hosted a celebratory reception for solicitor advocates, hosted a launch event with Legal Women magazine, held an in-house lawyer strategy session, organised the Council's Law Society annual dinner and the Fellows' lunch. We also participated in various third-party dinners, including the Society of Scottish Solicitors in London annual Burns Supper.

We refreshed our engagements with big firms hosting quarterly leaders lunches in Edinburgh and Aberdeen. We continued to liaise with big firms on international opportunities with the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Business & Trade.

We enhanced admissions letters to better guide members towards support services. Additionally, we carried out work to enable the launch of a new online platform for in-house lawyers in 2023-2024. 

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Financial Support
We will continue to grow additional income from commercial activity to fund further support for the profession, without adding greater pressure to core membership and practice fees.

We have met our growth plans for commercial income, generating in excess of £1.16m from CPD training and working with our valued stakeholders across the business community.

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Wellbeing
We will strive to reduce the stigma around mental health throughout the profession and provide a range of new resources for our member firms and organisations to enable them to support their staff employee wellbeing.

We organised a number of wellbeing events during 2022-2023. This included events for International Stress Awareness Week, Mental Health Awareness Week and Suicide Prevention Day. We launched a successful Bring a Guy campaign, and we engaged with the Men's Wellbeing Group to understand trends.

Our 2023 annual conference had a notable emphasis on wellbeing, including a dedicated session on the significance of diversity, inclusion, and wellbeing, which attracted 171 attendees. At the conference, we unveiled the Creating a Wellbeing Strategy Guide, which attracted sponsorship, as a supportive resource for members.

We conducted a student survey, garnering over 400 responses, to gain a better understanding of the future of the profession, with the results published and shared with partners. We are developing an action plan based on the findings. Additionally, a student section has been established as part of the Lawscot Wellbeing resource.

The 2023 Profile of the Profession included targeted questions to gather insights into the mental health and wellbeing of the profession.

We organised the first Mental Health First Aid training session for members, with 24 individuals being trained. We also established a LinkedIn group to share wellbeing information and resources, garnering over 80 members actively engaging with the content.