Leading the profession

Lawscot Sustainability
We will lead the conversation with the profession on climate related matters by implementing the commitments in our 2023 Climate Change Resolution and maintaining an open dialogue with the profession and related bodies around sustainability and the climate crisis.

As set out in our Climate Change Resolution, as well as ensuring the Law Society’s own sustainability objectives are progressed, we are committed to supporting our members in achieving a climate conscious approach to legal practice.

We worked with our Sustainability Committee to develop and implement the next stage of our strategy around climate change and continue to work with partner organisations both at home and internationally, including the global climate network Legal Sustainability Alliance, to help ensure best practice. As part of this we held four sustainability-focused events during the course of the year.

Grow associate members
We will increase our Accredited Paralegal and Fellow communities as part of our commitment to the professionalisation of the wider sector.

While growth in our associate memberships slowed in final quarter, and we ended the year below the 2.5% target at 2.1%, our retention rates for Accredited Paralegals remained strong. We successfully launched our new General Accreditation in late 2025, which provides formal recognition for high-performing, experienced paralegals working in broad or niche roles that don't fit into our 15 existing specialist areas.

Following the launch of the Paralegal CertHE at Robert Gordon University (September 2023) in partnership with the Law Society, there were 18 students enrolled on the course during 2024/25. The online course supports paralegals to gain and demonstrate the necessary knowledge and skills for their role, and to enhance their career progression.

The number of Law Society Fellows remained static over the year and we have committed to reviewing this in the next operating year.

Equality, Diversity and inclusion in the profession
We will continue to champion diversity throughout the profession across a broad range of characteristics with a focus on promoting equity and inclusion.

The lack of an Equality and Diversity Committee Convener had an impact on aspects of our EDI work, however we continued to make good use of the findings of the 2023 Profile of the Profession research to underpin our event planning and engagement activity.

We began our review of the Racial Inclusion Group’s Action Report, with the outcome going before the Equality and Diversity Committee in the first quarter of the 2025/26 operating year.

We finalised an external-facing strategy for EDI work, and onboarded new members and developed the work of the Equality and Diversity Committee, while also raising the profile of our EDI work through a sustained programme of external engagement.

Equality, Diversity and inclusion at the Law Society
We will implement the objectives highlighted in our diagnostic report from the accreditation as a Leader in Diversity process and prepare for re-accreditation. We will reinforce our commitment to ensuring that the Law Society is a positive environment where all our colleagues and volunteers feel they can be their true self.

Following a change in personnel at the Law Society, we changed direction in our internal equality, diversity and inclusion work, moving away from external accreditation of this work towards developing a bespoke, three-year internal plan.

Over the year we held a number of well-attended internal events and initiatives including: a partnership event with Women in Law Scotland for International Women's Day, participation in a Pride Brunch with a law firm and Edinburgh Pride March, a taster session with a focus on LGBTQ+ microaggressions, a Black History Month event focused on racial microaggressions.

We also explored ways to ensure lived experience is at the heart of our EDI work.

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Social Mobility
We will continue to enhance our work on social mobility, helping to bring down the barriers that stop people from entering the legal profession

As part of our social mobility work we undertook a number of engagement initiatives which included:

·        Trained 19 LLB students 40 trainee solicitors as new Street Lawyers. 

·        Successfully launched the Lawscot Foundation rebrand

·        Reviewed our sponsor engagement events for Lawscot Foundation with a view to ensuring they were relevant, and hosted two events.

·        Took part in a college information event during the year.

·        Commenced our popular Streetlaw programme and the annual Donald Dewar Memorial Debate Tournament 

While we were unable to launch our Social Mobility Network as planned, due to the resource required not being in place until late summer, our preparatory work during the 2024/25 operating year ensured it was ready to launch early in 2026.

Our partnership with Rare Recruitment drew to a close as Rare moved to work directly with firms.

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Website
We will commence a two-year project to review and upgrade our website, ensuring it is a key source of information and services for our members and the public.

Due to a focus on a major IT transformation project, we rescoped our website project during the year and opted for a phased approach over a longer time frame. During 2024/25 we appointed an external expert to review security, performance, and SEO of the current website.

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