Paralegal pointers

One of the committee’s biggest tasks every year is to plan and deliver an annual conference for the SPA membership, providing useful and accessible CPD. Following the success of this year’s conference at the Grand Central Hotel, in April, the committee organised an autumn conference, which was held on 2 October in the Apex City Hotel, Dundee. It was a great success with more than 20 speakers, 70 delegates and 12 exhibitors.

It was a very informative and interesting event. Sponsors were First Scottish Searching Services, Blackadders, Estate Research, Lindsays Solicitors, Property Searches Scotland, Registers of Scotland, Smart Promotions, Stewart Title and the Coal Authority. The SPA committee would like to thank all of our generous sponsors, and in particular our main sponsor First Scottish, our excellent speakers, the staff at the Apex Hotel and everyone else who participated. Without the generosity of all of our sponsors, the committee would not be able to host events such as this. Special thanks go to all of our excellent speakers who gave up their valuable time to join us on the day.

The conference was filmed, and the media company involved is currently editing the content. We hope to be able to offer parts or all of the conference on our website as a webinar for those were are unable to attend. This is a first for the Association and we are very excited. Further details will be announced in our newsletters and on our website. If successful, we hope that this will be a regular feature at our conferences.

Presentations were given on family law, debt recovery, conveyancing and private client, and there were also talks on cyber threats to law firms, health and wellbeing and anti-money laundering. As always, the speakers were excellent and the presentations covered lots of interesting topics.

Registers: look out for events

We were delighted to have the Keeper of the Registers of Scotland (RoS), Jennifer Henderson give a keynote speech at our conference. It was great to hear what she has been doing and what plans she has for the future.

The Keeper talked about a busy summer, meeting as many of RoS’s external partners and stakeholders as possible, and she is now well into her autumn campaign. The Ayr to Zetland campaign will see the Keeper, and other RoS colleagues, travel across Scotland to update legal professionals on the work currently under way at RoS. To date, the Keeper has visited Orkney, Shetland, Dundee, and Ayr; further dates and locations are:

Inverness – Wednesday 14 November

Aberdeen – Thursday 15 November

Stirling – Tuesday 20 November

Dundee – Wednesday 28 November

Peebles – Tuesday 11 December.

RoS wants to hear from its customers about its planned face-to-face interactions, including workshops and faculty visits, as well as written content such as blog posts and social media updates, which aim to put the customer at the centre of what RoS is doing. These will provide fresh news and information relating to their digital transformation, their products and services, and the arrear.

You can now register for the workshops via Eventbrite. Please give them your support as RoS is working to improve the services offered to us, their customers.

Christmas is coming

With the help of our continued sponsorship we are increasing the number of networking/CPD events that we hold, and it is hoped that we will be able to have a monthly event at various locations throughout the country. Initially we are holding events in Glasgow and Edinburgh but will be at other places in the near future. These events are open to members and non-members of the Association. They include an opportunity to attend talks and meet and network with fellow paralegals and other legal professionals. 

The next events are our Christmas Pie and Prosecco evenings, on 4 December at Lindsays Solicitors, Caledonian Exchange, 19a Canning Street, Edinburgh, and on 5 December in the Grand Central Hotel, Buchanan Suite, 99 Gordon Street, Glasgow, both from 5.30-7.30pm.

Places are limited and if you would liketo come along, please see our website for booking details.

Quarterly CPD

Through a new collaboration, Central Law Training will host quarterly CPD discussions which will include an opportunity to hear and engage with sector leading experts on key legal topics. In addition to this free CPD event, members of SPA can select from Central Law Training’s full public training programme for only £30 per hour. This includes all conferences, seminars and webinars.

John Kerrigan was the first speaker provided by CLT and his presentation dealt with the possible rights of succession of cohabitants on intestacy. The event on 23 October was well received by all the delegates who attended.

As always, we would love to hear from members with any suggestions for events or CPD you would like us to organise for you. Contact us at President@scottish-paralegal.org.uk or info@scotish-paralegal.org.uk