The Conveyancing Committee
Janette Wilson, Convener of the Conveyancing Committee
Janette is the Solicitor of the Church of Scotland and Law Agent of the General Assembly. She is also the Custodier of Titles but likes to keep that quiet!
In the above capacity, Janette represents the central Boards and Committees of the Church, its statutory corporations (including the Church of Scotland General Trustees) and congregations. She also serves as secretary of a number of Trusts and on various ecumenical bodies.
Her specialities are church conveyancing (which includes properties of all types), trust and charity law.
email: jwilson@cofscotland.org.uk
P. Michael Samuel, Vice Convener of the Conveyancing Committee
Michael is senior partner of Miller Samuel & Co in Glasgow and has been a partner in the firm since it was founded in 1974. He specialises in residential conveyancing, estate agency and private client work.
His main interest outside the firm is Glasgow Solicitors Property Centre and he has been the Chairman of GSPC for over five years. During this period, GSPC has expanded greatly. Its membership comprises approximately 180 legal firms in the West of Scotland and the Centre currently registers at least 38% of all residential property marketed for sale in the Glasgow area.
email: pms@milsam.demon.co.uk
Alix Bearhop
Bruce Beveridge
Bruce has been Deputy Keeper at Registers of Scotland since March 2004. He trained at Mitchells Roberton in Glasgow before joining the Government Legal Service in Scotland where earlier in his career he has enjoyed a number of different positions, the most recent being as Legal Secretary to the Lord President of the Court of Session.
Bruce is also a member of the Council of the Law Society of Scotland and of the Council of the WS Society. He also sits on the Law Society’s Audit Committee and In-House Lawyers’ Group in addition to the Conveyancing Committee, and is a member of the WS Society’s Knowledge Services Committee.”
email: Bruce.Beveridge@ros.gov.uk
Paul Carnan
Paul commenced practice in 1982. Since 1987, he has been a principal or partner in a small, city centre, conveyancing-oriented practices. Paul specialises in all aspects of domestic conveyancing, security work and general commercial work - i.e.nothing that can be referred to by acronym!
Paul represents the Society on the NHBC Scottish Council.
E-mail: mail@blaneycarnan.com
Elizabeth Comerford
Having graduated from Dundee University in 1988, Liz Comerford is a property partner in the Tayside legal firm of Thorntons where she deals with all types of residential property work including work on behalf of institutional lenders. Liz is a former tutor on the Diploma in Legal Practice Course at The University of Dundee.
e-mail: ecomerford@thorntons-law.co.uk
Deborah Lovell
Deborah is a Partner in Anderson Strathern's Commercial Real Estate Department. She deals with all aspects of commercial real estate, in particular the propety aspects of comany acquisitions, portfolio acquisition and sales and transport projects and development work for both landowners and developers.
Deborah also has a particular interest and involvement in land tax issues and profit sharing/overage agreements.
Deborah is a member of the WS Society Knowledge Services Committee and tutors on the Professional Practice Couse. She is a former tutor in Conveyancing on the University of Edinburgh Diploma in Legal Practice, Deborah is a regular contributor to courses on commercial leasing, Stamp Duty Land Tax and overage and clawback issues.
email: deborah.lovell@andersonstrathern.co.uk
Ross Mackay
Ross graduated from Aberdeen University and qualified as a solicitor in 1982. He became a partner with Henderson Boyd Jackson in 1986 and specialises in residential conveyancing and estate agency.
He is Chair of Edinburgh Conveyancers Forum and the Society's representative on ARTL Group and Purchasers Information Advisory Group.
email: r.mackay@hbj.co.uk
John McNeil - CBE
John retired as Senior Partner of Morton Fraser WS, in Edinburgh. He specialised in a wide variety of commercial property transactions for major corporate clients, and in providing opinions on solicitors' negligence for both pursuers and defenders.
John is a former convener of Society's Conveyancing Committee and past-president of the Society 1986/87.
He chaired the Society's Working Parties on the Abolition of Feudal Tenure and on the Title Conditions Bill. He was also the Chair of the Society's working party which helped prepare the second edition of the Registration of Title Practice Book.
email:
Lionel Most
Lionel is currently a partner (member) in the Glasgow office of Burness LLP. He specialises in commercial property work and heads up the retail unit. He is accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a commercial leasing specialist.
His main area of work in practice is in commercial leasing, both for landlords and for tenants, split between the retail, leisure sector and third/urban regeneration sector.
His writings have appeared in the Scottish Law and Practice Quarterly and he is a contributor to Greens Landlord and Tenant Legislation and Greens Commercial Styles.
He has been called as an expert witness on occasion and acts as an arbiter in disputes surrounding leases.
email: lionel.most@burness.co.uk
Professor Roddy Paisley
Roddy is Professor of Commercial Property Law at Aberdeen University. His principal interests are land law and commercial conveyancing and he is currently researching new property law.
He is co-author of Servitudes and Public Rights of Way and Unreported Property Law Cases from the Sheriff Courts with Sheriff D J Cusine. He is also the author of Paisley, Land Law. His intended publications for this year includes a book on unreported sheriff court decisions.
email: law150@abdn.ac.uk
Pauline Peddie
Donald Reid
Donald qualified as a solicitor in 1975 and practices in Glasgow. Since 1978 he has been a partner in his present firm. It was originally known as Mitchells Johnston Hill & Hoggan but following an amalgamation became known as Mitchells Roberton in 1985. In 1997 he was appointed Chairman of the firm.
Donald has practised extensively, though not exclusively, in the field of conveyancing and property law, both residential and commercial. He was tutor, and latterly senior tutor and lecturer, in the Diploma in Legal Practice with the University of Glasgow from 1980 to 1999. He lectures widely and frequently to the legal profession on conveyancing and property related topics and is frequently called upon to give opinions or reports on the conveyancing aspects of disputes and litigations. He has a listing in the Law Society of Scotland Directory of Expert Witnesses. He is an accredited mediator.
email: dbr@Mitchells-Roberton.co.uk
Professor Robert Rennie
Professor Robert Rennie LLB PhD NP FRSA joined Harper Macleod as a partner in October 2001. He has a wide range of experience in relation to all forms of property law work but has also vast experience in professional negligence as it affects legal practice.
In 1993 he took up the prestigious part-time post of Professor of Conveyancing at the University of Glasgow. Since then, in addition to maintaining a busy legal practice, he has been a prolific author of articles and textbooks on property law and negligence matters such as conveyancing, missives, the execution of deeds, solicitors' negligence, the law of minerals, standard securities and more recently, on land tenure following the abolition of the feudal system. He has been at the forefront of many of the most recent far-reaching reforms of property law introduced by the Scottish Parliament being a member of the Scottish Law Commission Working Parties on the Abolition of the Feudal System, Title Conditions, Tenements, Leasehold Tenure and the law relating to the Seabed and Foreshore. He is the general editor of Greens Conveyancing Legislation and is the property sub-editor for Greens Scottish Human Rights Service.
For many years he has had a close involvement with the Law Society of Scotland having been a member of the Conveyancing Committee for over fifteen years. He is much in demand as a speaker at conferences and seminars on property law and routinely chairs conferences for solicitors relating to the new land tenure reforms, which will have considerable impact on the legal and business world in Scotland.
He was appointed by the Minister for Social Justice as an external member of the Housing Improvement Task Force. His responsibilities include advising Ministers on measures to sustain quality in the existing private sector stock and on how the present system of conveyancing and property transfer may bear upon the quality of housing stock in the private sector.
He is a director of Capability Scotland and a trustee of the Clark Foundation for Legal Education.
He has provided many opinions to other members of the legal profession in relation to conveyancing, property law and negligence matters and is regularly called upon to act as an expert witness in court.
email: robert.rennie@harpermacleod.co.uk
Philip Simpson
Based at the Taylor Wimpey UK Limited offices in Dunfermline, Philip is the in-house Company Solicitor for the eastern half of Scotland and heads the legal team responsible for all Taylor Wimpey land acquisition and disposal, residential development, and new build house sales in that area.
In addition, he advises Taylor Wimpey plc and its English subsidiary Companies on any aspects of law affecting the operations of the Taylor Wimpey Companies in Scotland.
Originally from Dundee, Philip qualified in 1983, was a partner for nine years with the Perth firm of Wyllie and Henderson, specialising in domestic and commercial conveyancing and land and property development and lectured in Law at Perth College, before joining Taylor Wimpey in 1993.
e-mail: Philip.Simpson@taylorwimpey.com
Scott Wortley
Scott Wortley was educated at Annan Academy and the University of Edinburgh graduating LLB (Honours) in 1994. He qualified as a solicitor in 1997 completing a traineeship at Messrs Ketchen and Stevens, WS. Thereafter he was employed at the Scottish Law Commission and worked as senior legal assistant on the Scottish Law Commission projects on Feudal Abolition and Real Burdens. He later had a consultancy role on the latter project following his departure from Scottish Law Commission staff.
From 2000 - 2005 he was a lecturer at the University of Strathclyde, joining the University of Edinburgh in 2005.
In 2002 - 3 he was adviser to the Justice 1 Committee of the Scottish Parliament on the Title Conditions (Scotland) Bill assisting in the preparation of the Stage 1 report and amendments submitted by Committee members during Stage 2 of the parliamentary process.
During 2005 he was a consultant to the Scottish Executive in its work on the reform of diligence (enforcement of decrees) against land.
While he has written on a number of topics relating to land and conveyancing he has a particular interest in the law of real burdens and has published widely on the area - including substantial treatments in the seventh edition of Professor McDonald's Conveyancing Manual, and articles in a number of journals. He has also delivered numerous continuing professional development seminars on various aspects of the law of real burdens around Scotland. His collaborative work on the topic with Dr Andrew Steven has been relied on in the Lands Tribunal for Scotland.
e-mail: scott.wortley@ed.ac.uk
