I am a senior member of the Dispute Resolution team in Standard Life Group Legal. The team has responsibility for and oversight of all contentious matters within the Standard Life Group – this covers the Group’s UK, Irish and overseas business, including Standard Life Investments. I resolve disputes by seeking to identify creative solutions which align with wider business strategy, prioritise key business drivers (including fair treatment of customers) and preserve existing commercial relationships. Through early engagement with business stakeholders, I manage risk and prevent reputational harm on a cost-effective basis. As far as possible I manage disputes and conduct litigation in-house so as to avoid unnecessary legal spend and provide direct benefit from my subject matter expertise. I conduct and manage litigation in Scotland (including carrying out advocacy in the Scottish Courts), Ireland and England, including Group Litigation Orders and high-value investor misrepresentation cases. I am the principal point of contact in the team in relation to contentious IP and financial crime matters and routinely deal with Ombudsman, other regulatory and pensions disputes.My role also involves a risk-prevention function by ensuring that any lessons in relation to underlying causes of disputes are identified and actioned at business level.

I was seconded to the Commercial Banking Legal Litigation team at LBG for a period of 9 months. All high-value Commercial Banking disputes and significant risk issues required to be referred to that team to advise on possible recovery while controlling legal cost and preventing harm to reputation. My role entailed the provision of advice and focused reporting to internal bank stakeholders and the instruction of external solicitors, including in relation to:o pursuing and defending high-value litigation in Scotland, England, continental Europe and the USA, including in respect of claims for breach of contract, mis-selling of interest swaps, delictual breach of duty, fraud and professional negligence; o regulatory matters and communications with the FSA and FOS; o the provision of witness support to bank employees asked to provide evidence in criminal and civil cases, and coordination of document recovery exercises required in such cases;o the proper interpretation of document production orders and other court orders.

I transferred to Pinsents as an Associate following its merger with McGrigors. My substantive role remained as before.

I trained with McGrigors and qualified into the Commercial Litigation team in Edinburgh.My principal area of specialism was Intellectual Property litigation. I acted as lead solicitor in a large number of varied IP disputes, including in a substantial number of cases in the Court of Session in Scotland, in respect of trade mark, copyright, design right and patent infringement and breach of confidence, and otherwise provided extensive advice on brand management, enforcing IP rights (including recovery of domain names) and managing risk of infringement of third party rights. I advised a number of high-profile companies on compliance of their PR and marketing materials with industry advertising standards and consumer protection regulations.I also had a wider commercial litigation practice, tending in particular toward contentious corporate and banking and finance disputes. I have acted as the lead solicitor in a number of shareholder and director disputes, disputes arising from complex corporate and commercial transactions and insolvency matters. I regularly took part in and promoted various forms of alternative dispute resolution, including mediation and arbitration. I co-authored the Scottish chapter of the 2011 and 2012 editions of The Dispute Resolution Review.