Admission to the roll of solicitors

To practice as a Scottish solicitor you first need to be admitted as a Scottish solicitor.  This is a one-off process which results in your name being entered onto the Roll of Scottish Solicitors. Admission is an essential part of the route to qualification both for those completing a traineeship and also for those requalifying into Scotland.

Once you have been admitted, you must apply for a practising certificate to enable you to perform the duties of a solicitor, which then needs to be renewed on an annual basis.

The whole admission process (which includes a Disclosure Scotland check, petitioning the Court of Session and our records being updated) can take up to six weeks.  Further information about those processes can be found on the webpages for the traineeship and requalification, at the bottom of this webpage.

To practise as a solicitor in Scotland you must be competent to do so and you should not pose a risk to your clients, the public or other members of the profession. You must also maintain the standards of honesty, integrity and professionalism that the public and other members of the profession expect.  In short, you must be "fit and proper".

Your fitness and properness is considered by us when you apply for admission to the Roll for the first time, in addition to at the following stages:

• application for an entrance certificate
• application for restoration to the roll at any time
• application for a practising certificate having not held one for 12 months or more

A copy of our Fit and Proper Guidance can be found at the bottom of this page.

As part of the admission process, the Law Society will require to see a Level 2 Disclosure certificate for you.

From 1 April 2025, Disclosure Scotland changed the way it processes and sends Disclosure certificates.  Full details can be found on their website.  The main changes you need to be aware of are:

• You will now be required to obtain a Level 2 disclosure. This is identical to the old Standard disclosure.
• You will need to create a ScotAccount to apply for a certificate.  The new process is all online. You no longer fill out a form and submit it to the Law Society for countersigning. Now, we will start the application for you, using the information in your entrance certificate, admission  or requalification application.  You then get an email from Disclosure Scotland with a link to complete the application and will pay their fee, before you submit it.
• Once you have been sent your online certificate by Disclosure Scotland, you will have to request that it is sent on to the Law Society. Disclosure Scotland will provide guidance on how to do this.

Full details of the new process are at the “Level 2 disclosure” link above.

Please note that although we are here to help, the Law Society may be unable to answer any questions that you have about the new process. Any questions about the changes or your ScotAccount should go to Disclosure Scotland.

If any of the information on this page, about the Law Society’s processes, is unclear, we’d be happy to answer those.

Our Education, Training & Qualifications team is on hand to help. If you have any questions, get in touch with David Macdougall, Admissions Coordinator.