Serena Sutherland: balancing the international and the local as Law Society of Scotland president

Peter Ranscombe interviews Serena Sutherland, the incoming president of the Law Society of Scotland, about the focus for her year in office.

It’s a good job that Serena Sutherland enjoys travelling. As the incoming president of the Law Society of Scotland, her role will involve many journeys away from her home at Stromness in Orkney. Yet Serena is walking the walk as well as talking the talk when it comes to demonstrating that solicitors from the Highlands and Islands can enjoy a rich and rewarding career in stunning surroundings while still playing a full role in the wider life of the profession.

As the first solicitor based in the Northern Isles to become an office bearer at the Society, Serena has spent the past year as vice president, having been elected to the Society’s Council in 2018 to represent the massive constituency that covers the Highlands, Moray, Northern and Western Isles. Her love of travel even took her to Iceland recently to get married, with her husband – a mental health officer and social worker – living in Forres. “We’ve not quite worked out how to live together yet,” she smiles.

One of her final engagements as vice president was a trip to Prague for the International Bar Association’s 19th Annual Bar Leaders’ Conference. In a world in which the headlines are dominated by Donald Trump and other autocratic leaders, the importance of working with other jurisdictional bodies to promote the rule of law has been near the forefront of Serena’s mind.

“Scotland has always punched above its weight on the international stage – and the Law Society and Scotland’s solicitors are no exception,” she says. “People respect our courts and our legal system and so I believe Scotland has a role to play by working with other bodies to promote the rule of law.”

She points to the recent amicus curiae brief in the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC, in which the Law Society was invited to stand alongside fellow bar associations in the UK and Europe to support four American law firms in court action against executive orders issued by Trump.

Celebrating alternative routes into the profession

Closer to home, legal aid and wider access to justice issues are also high on Serena’s agenda for her year as president. Serena joined Drever & Heddle – now d and h – in 2003, becoming a partner in 2008 and its sole director and owner in 2016. She’s since been joined by two co-directors to run the full-service civil high-street law firm, which has offices in Stormness, Kirkwall, and Thurso. Serena is one of four solicitors at the firm, which has about 25 members of staff in total, with many working from home.

“My colleagues are generously supporting me during my work with the Law Society,” says Serena, who specialises in family law. “The coffee machine is always on in the Kirkwall office, so I know they’d welcome visitors if anyone is on holiday in Orkney during the summer.”

Serena followed an interesting route into the profession. “I went to university after school, but – to be honest – I was bored, and so dropped out; that meant I had to get as far away as possible from my mother and so moved to Australia for a year,” she jokes. “When I got back, I took a job as an admin assistant at Drever & Heddle.”

Serena followed the pre-diploma training programme – now known as the professional education and training (PEAT) contract – for three years, before completing her diploma in professional legal practice at the University of Edinburgh. “I think the advantage of the pre-diploma or PEAT contract is that it gives you practical, hands-on experience from day one,” she says. “There’s no risk that you’ll get to the end of your law degree and then realise you don’t want to practice law. The downside is that it’s less academic – the trainees that I’ve seen with degrees tend to be better at carrying out really in-depth research before filing submissions.”

Legal aid and anti-money laundering high on the agenda

As Serena settles into her role, a fellow Orcadian is also getting his feet under a new desk: Neil Gray, who was named as the cabinet secretary for justice following the recent Holyrood election. “Obviously Neil Gray grew up in Kirkwall, and I grew up in Stromness, so we are natural rivals, but we’ll try and put that aside,” Serena laughs. She wants to see legal aid and access to justice at the top of the new justice secretary’s in-tray, and notes that a legal aid reform bill was included in the Scottish National Party’s election manifesto.

While much of the work to bed-in the new regulatory regime north of the border will fall to the Regulatory Committee, Serena is conscious that the passage of the Regulation of Legal Services (Scotland) Act will shape much of her presidency and many presidencies to come. She’s a strong advocate for the Society keeping its dual role as both regulator and representative body.

When it comes to dealing with Westminster, the Council is monitoring the situation surrounding anti-money laundering (AML) regulations. “We’re conscious that this is an area in which many of our members feel they’re already over-regulated,” she says. “Westminster has indicated that it’s minded to bring AML under the authority of a different regulator for the whole of the UK, but we think that the Law Society of Scotland should remain as the regulator for AML because we have the required specialist knowledge of the Scottish legal sector.”

When she’s not travelling, Serena enjoys the usual mix of walking, theatre and cinema. One of the advantages of spending more time in Edinburgh is that she’s looking forward to catching more live music, although she praises the gigs she already attends at home, including the St Magnus Festival and the Orkney Folk Festival.

Her next gig is Metallica in Glasgow. “I know of at least one other Scottish lawyer who’s going, but I’m not sure if we’ll see any other familiar faces,” she laughs.

And while travelling? Podcasts are the order of the day. “I love The Rest is… franchise, especially Politics and Classified, the real-life spy stories,” she confesses. “And then Electoral Dysfunction with Ruth Davidson and the Pilot TV podcast from Empire magazine.” Let’s hope Serena enjoys the new podcast from the Journal too while she’s on her presidential travels.