Council election rounds sees new and familiar faces and co-conveners elected to the In-house Lawyers Committee

One brand new member and four familiar faces have been elected by their peers to join the Law Society of Scotland’s Council, in the latest round of contested elections. 

David Mair, Anne MacDonald, Austin Lafferty and Ross Yuill, were returned to their seats representing solicitors in Glasgow and Strathkelvin.  

Emma Crilley, a solicitor at Anderson Strathern, won the fifth available seat in Glasgow, vacated by Alison Atack who stands down as President on 31 May.  

Vlad Valiente and Sheekha Saha, standing as co-conveners, have won the In-house Lawyers Committee election. In their role as co-conveners, Vlad and Sheekha will also take a seat on Council representing in-house lawyers. Sheekha has been a constituency Council member for the highlands and islands since 2006.  

Euan Mitchell, General Counsel at Castlewater Limited, is the only new Council member to be elected unopposed and will take up the Perth seat. 

Lorna Jack, chief executive of the Society, said: “I’d like to extend my congratulations to all new and returning Council members.  As our principal governing body, our Council has responsibility for the overall governance of the Law Society and our Council members play a really important part in that. Our elected solicitor members also bring the views and perspectives of their constituents to that role.

“In a Law Society first, we have also elected co-conveners to a committee, with Vlad and Sheekha winning the in-house lawyers election.  Congratulations to them and I am sure they will do a great job of leading the committee and representing the in-house community on our Council. I’d also like to express my thanks to all candidates who stood for election, and for the interest they have shown in the Society.” 

There were two other constituencies where uncontested elections took place.  Waqqas Ashraf returned unopposed in the Greenock, Kilmarnock and Paisley constituency and Gwen Haggerty returned unopposed in the Cupar, Dunfermline and Kirkcaldy constituency.  There remains one seat vacant in both those constituencies due to Simon Brown and Susan Williams standing down. 

Notes to editor

In-house Lawyer Committee convener election

David Bryson  - 181 votes

Sheekha Saha and Vlad Valiente (elected as co-conveners) -  224 votes

Turnout  12 %

Glasgow Council member election results: