President 2024/25 | Susan Murray

Susan Murray trained at law firm Nightingale & Bell (which merged with Balfour and Manson in 1991), before moving in-house to NHS Scotland in 1984. She is a Senior Solicitor in the Litigation Department of the Scottish Health Service, Central Legal Office (CLO), advising on NHS law and specialising in medical negligence litigation and representation at public inquiries. She is a trade union representative within CLO and, in that capacity, is a member of CLO’s senior management team.

Susan was first elected to the Law Society’s Council, representing the Edinburgh constituency, in 2017, and took up convenership of the Equality and Diversity Committee in 2018. She was appointed to the Board in 2019, which has allowed her to become more deeply involved in decision-making across key issues affecting solicitors in all practice areas, in addition to supporting the Law Society’s contribution to society more widely.

Susan brings the perspective of an in-house solicitor to the work of the Society, reflecting an ever-growing number of in-house solicitor members. As a civil litigator in the Scottish Courts, her professional interests also align with a large proportion of the Society’s court practitioner members in private practice.

Susan has a particular interest in fairness, equality, fulfilment at work and entry to the profession. Throughout her legal career she has practiced law within a public service organisation that takes active steps to be a “Great Place to Work”, in terms of access to supportive work/life balance policies, transparency in pay and progression and partnership working between management and staff in reaching management decisions. She is also a parent to three law graduate children.

These interests have drawn Susan into the Society’s equality and diversity work and, in her time as the Equality and Diversity Committee’s convener, the committee worked on key areas of concern identified in the Society’s 2018 Profile of the Profession survey, including the unsustainable number of women currently leaving the profession early, despite them representing the majority of entrants. Also, in 2021, the committee was involved in setting up a group to consider and report to the Society on racial inclusion within the profession. She is committed to influencing and driving positive change in these important areas for the profession.