Six SLAB appointments announced from 1 April

Four new members of and two reappointments to the Scottish Legal Aid Board have been announced.

Sheriff John Morris, Raymond McMenamin, Brian Baverstock and Stephen Humphreys join the Board from 1 April 2018, while Lesley Ward and Sarah O'Neill have been reappointed.

Sheriff Morris spent 10 years as a solicitor before calling to the Scottish bar in 1985 and the English bar in 1989. He was a temporary sheriff from 1992 to 1998, a full time sheriff from 1998 to 2017 and for the last 10 years has sat as a Temporary High Court Judge. 

Raymond McMenamin was admitted as a solicitor in 1982 and worked as a procurator fiscal depute before moving to private practice in both civil and criminal litigation. A partner in his firm for 30 years, he became a solicitor advocate (criminal) in 2000. In 2007 he was appointed a part time sheriff; in 2015 he was made shrieval convener of the Mental Health Tribunal of Scotland and in 2017 he was appointed to the board of the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission. He continues to practise independently as a solicitor advocate and also sits regularly throughout Scotland as a sheriff.

Brian Baverstock is a qualified accountant with a long career in the public sector in Scotland, most recently at the Scottish Funding Council where his responsibilities included quality assurance and institutional governance and financial sustainability. He is currently an independent consultant specialising in public sector governance and risk management. Throughout much of his career he has been involved in public sector reform. Experience as a non-executive director in the public and voluntary sector includes with Children’s Hearings Scotland; he has also been a member of the Edinburgh children’s panel.

Stephen Humphreys is a former civil servant with 39 years’ experience of the justice system in England & Wales and Scotland, most recently as an executive director of the Scottish Courts & Tribunals Service and the first director of the Judicial Office for Scotland. A former chief executive of the Law Commission of England & Wales, he has also led policy development for civil legal aid, legal aid remuneration and the policy on the award of costs in civil proceedings in that jurisdiction..

Lesley Ward, an experienced solicitor with a background in family law, has been legal convener of the Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland since its inception in 2004 and was recently appointed as legal convener with the First-tier Tribunal Housing and Property Chamber.

Sarah O’Neill is a non-practising solicitor with experience in the private, public and voluntary sectors. An independent consultant specialising in legal and consumer policy, she has many years’ experience of working on consumer and access to justice issues. She has been a legal member of the First-tier Tribunal Housing & Property Chamber since 2012, and is also a part time in the Consumer Dispute Resolution Centre at Queen Margaret University.

All these appointments run from 1 April 2018 to 31 Marchh 2022, except for Sarah O'Neill's which runs until 31 March 2021. They attract a remuneration of £216.40 per day for a time commitment of 3.5 days per month.

The new appointments are in place of Sheriff Ray Small, Ros Micklem, Bill McQueen and Alastair Kinroy QC, who are leaving the Board.