Five members have been reappointed to the Scottish Civil Justice Council. 

The members, who took up their three-year posts on 28 May 2019, are:  

• The Right Hon. Lord Boyd of Duncansby (judicial member)
• Sheriff Principal Ian R Abercrombie QC (judicial member)
• Joel Conn (solicitor member)
• Brandon Malone (LP member)
• Employment Judge Joseph d’Inverno (LP member) 

Welcoming the reappointments, the Chair of the Council, the Lord President, Lord Carloway, said: “I look forward to continuing to working with each of them. Their knowledge and experience are a valuable contribution to the Council’s work in taking forward the historic reforms proposed in the Scottish Civil Courts Review.

“I would also like to thank those leaving the Council, The Right Hon. Lord Menzies (judicial member), The Hon. Lord Tyre (judicial member), Sheriff Murphy QC (judicial member), Ian Maxwell (consumer representative member) and Jane Williams (consumer representative member), for their excellent work during their tenure.”

The appointments were made by the Lord President following an open and competitive recruitment exercise in consultation with the Scottish Ministers and the Law Society of Scotland.

Biographies

The Right Hon. Lord Boyd of Duncansby (Colin Boyd) 

Lord Boyd was appointed a judge of the Supreme Courts in June 2012.  More information is available on the Judiciary of Scotland website. 

Sheriff Principal Abercrombie QC

Sheriff Principal Abercrombie was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1981 and was appointed as a QC in 1994.  He has been a Sheriff since 2009 and was appointed to his present office as Sheriff Principal of South Strathclyde, Dumfries and Galloway in January 2015. 

Joel Conn

Mr Conn graduated from the University of Glasgow in 1996 and was admitted as a solicitor in 1998. He is a director of Mitchells Roberton in their litigation department, based in Glasgow.  He specialises in commercial litigation and debt recovery and has particular expertise in insolvency, factoring and finance leasing, complex secured debt recovery and all aspects of contract disputes. He was the first solicitor to be awarded accreditation by the Law Society of Scotland as a specialist in Debt & Asset Recovery Law and frequently provides training on these issues to members of the legal and other professions as well as to clients.  Mr Conn also now sit part-time as a Legal Member of the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland (Housing and Property Chamber).

Brandon Malone 

Mr Malone is a solicitor advocate with over 25 years’ experience in dispute resolution.  He is accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a specialist in Construction Law and as a specialist in Arbitration Law, and convenes the Society’s Arbitration Accreditation Committee. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and an Honorary Lecturer at the Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy at the University of Dundee. Mr Malone is Chairman of the Scottish Arbitration Centre’s Board and is also Co-Director of the International Centre for Energy Arbitration. He is regularly appointed as an arbitrator in domestic and international cases and he is a member of the panel of arbitrators of the ICDR, CIETAC, SIAC, DIAC, AIAC, and BCDR-AAA. 

Joseph d’Inverno 

Judge d’Inverno is currently (since 2002) an Employment Judge, sitting in Employment Tribunal (Scotland) and, since 2015 a Judge of the County Court in England & Wales sitting on the North East Circuit.  Before assuming full time judicial appointment in 2005, he practiced as a Solicitor Advocate (since 1993) and as a Solicitor since 1983 He currently functions as one of fifteen “Judge Mediators” in Scotland. Judge d’Inverno is a former member of the Sheriff Court Rules Council and, until 2016, was a serving member of the Territorial Army and Army Reserve.