Supporting our members to thrive

We undertook a range of activity related to legal tech and the work of the Society to support members, including efforts to increase awareness of AI and its use within the sector.

Our Lawscot Tech Advisory Board (LSTAB) redirected its focus to a different set of initiatives under the acting chair of the board. This included a full review and relaunch of the Accredited Legal Technologists (ALTs) scheme, which was carried out with the ALTs and the accreditation panel. We also hosted four roundtable events with or ALTs and a focus going into the next operating year 2025/26 is to continue to grow this network.

We engaged with Scottish universities providing the LLB and Diploma on legal tech education provision. This was reviewed towards the end of the 2024/25 operating year, with a view to continuing the dialogue around legal tech provision at both LLB and diploma.

LSTAB and the Law Society’s Technology Law and Practise Committee also considered the results of our smaller practice research in relation to the adoption of technology and AI and a range of initiatives are being developed for launch in 2025/26. This is set to include free tech consultation sessions for small firms and AI workshops. We also attended UK Government events to discuss AI adoption and the wider legal tech landscape in Scotland. As part of this conversation, the CPD & Training team launched our very first ‘AI and the Law’ series of five webinars, which attracted over 150 registrations across all modules and that have now been made available on-demand. We also ran two iterations of our Legal Technology Certification Course, for the second year in partnership with Hey Legal.

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We have successfully grown our Member Benefits programme to 26 partners who provide a range of products and services to support our membership. This was ahead of our projections for the year. We also saw a 23% increase in sponsorship from key partners for our annual conference in 2025

As part of our member support, we also reviewed two pieces of Guidance/Advice and Information within our Rules and Guidance section of the website.

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Our continuous professional development programme (CPD) expanded further over the year, delivering high quality online, in-person and hybrid training which attracted 8941 member engagements across all channels.

This included our three flagship conferences, free to members. Our Annual Conference saw 1253 registrations across four days; our increasingly popular Legal Tech conference reached a new high of 735 registrations (between online and in-person); and our dedicated In-House Annual Conference had over 590 attendees.

We also delivered three successful iterations of the New Partner Practice Management course, which is mandatory for new partners, as both in-person and online sessions.

In addition, we delivered: seven individual certification courses, three individual recertification courses, and 25 individual essential skill courses.

We ran 11 conferences covering key practice areas, including: family law; commercial contracts; wills, trusts and executries; conveyancing; personal injury; AML; in-house best practice; construction law, and adults with incapacity. We also developed a comprehensive offering of black letter law webinars across most practice areas.

Our CPD on demand library grew significantly throughout the year, attracting 1369 bookings and offering members access to our most recent training, at their convenience.

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We hosted 10 in-person Lawscot Forum meetings during the year and while these offer valuable engagement opportunities with members we have looked to refresh our engagement programme to ensure we deliver best value.

We trialled a new Policy Perspectives series of events and early career/legal foundations roundtables, both of which will continue into the next practice year along with a roadshow series combining CPD/engagement forums and Sheriff Court visits. We also hosted a number of events for specific membership groups including our leadership lunches for senior figures at large firms and in-house GCs, legal technologist and in-house trainee roundtables, and two Fellows events. In addition to our annual dinner, held in Glasgow, we also hosted a special 75th anniversary reception at the Scottish Parliament, and a retiral reception for the Lord Justice Clerk and Lord President. As part of our wider member engagement programme, we also hosted tables at third party events for our members, including the Society of Scottish Lawyers in London Burns Supper, and Manchester Women in Law.

We have also looked to the results from our small practice unit research, published in July 2025, to design initiatives inrecruitment and retention, future planning and business ownership, AML, tech, wellbeing and legal aid which aim to meet the needs of smaller firms across Scotland.

We launched a new Wellbeing Strategy early in 2025 which was developed in line with the key wellbeing themes emanating from our 2023 Profile of the Profession research.

While there had been a pause on the Law Society’s wellbeing work to recruit a new member of staff during the 2024/25 operating year, momentum on this important area of support for our members was restored, with renewed energy and focus on implementing a range of initiatives.

During 2024/25 we provided training for eight Wellbeing Champions, with further work on this planned for the next operating year. We hosted a session for a group of mental health first aiders who had previously been trained by the Law Society. We also offered additional mental health first aid training.

Due to the very high levels of interest in wellbeing within the profession, we have made it a key part of our redesigned engagement programme of events, including our Business in Law roadshow.

In addition to our work with members, we also created a Health and Wellbeing Group for Law Society staff.