President's Newsletter - March 2026
PRESIDENT'S NEWSLETTER – MARCH 2026
It has been a great honour to be elected as your President of the newly renamed Newcastle and North of England Law Society, particularly during the Bicentennial year of the National Law Society and as we enter our own Bicentennial year in 2026.
During my year as President, I have had the great honour of attending many different events representing the society. One of the recent highlights was attending the Past Presidents dinner last month when I was very privileged to be joined by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Tyne and Wear Lucy Winskell OBE who was the very first woman to be president of the Newcastle and North of England Law Society. In the audience were many other Past Presidents including the immediate Past President Nigel Emmerson as well as my current Vice President Lesley Fairclough and Deputy Vice President Clare Hurst. All have provided immense support over the past 12 months alongside our Director of Operations Sanchia Coatsworth and our fantastic standing committee as well as our Law Society Council members Allan Devine, Guy Goodings, and Claire Logan who volunteer their time so readily to support the society and the legal profession across our region. If any members would like to put themselves forward for the standing committee please get in touch. I can wholeheartedly recommend it and its a great way to support your profession and get a fantastic perspective of legal work across disciplines in our area.
I would like to give a special mention to Allan Devine who has decided to step down in his position as Law Society Council member after serving on the Law Society council since 2014. Allan has been a driving force and font of knowledge regarding all legal and regulatory matters within the society throughout the time I have been involved with the Committee. On behalf of the Society I would like to wish him all the very best in his retirement as he moves out of area to be with his family.
I would personally like to thank all our members and membership firms for your continued support. We have worked hard as a society to ensure that our members feel that they are getting sufficient value from their membership and have developed a new membership brochure setting out the various perks of membership. We are very pleased to say that we continue to have a number of fantastic events lined up over the next few months and further details of the events following the upcoming AGM and Spring supper will be provided soon.
We have a number of important events coming up including:
Thursday 5th of March 2026 in collaboration with Temple Legal Protection we have the pleasure in hosting a Personal Injury and Clinical Negligence Seminar at The Dakota Hotel, Newcastle Quayside from 4.30pm - 6.30pm. When we will have Stuart Jamieson Barrister at Park Lane Plowden Chambers and Helen Wall Head of Fortius Expert Witness Services, Health Visitor and Registered Nurse presenting alongside Lisa Fricker of Temple Legal Protection. This is FREE to attend.
Tuesday 17th of March – Managing Partners & Heads of Office – SQE review with Julie Swan, Director Education and Training at the SRA
Thursday 19th March – Property Law Seminar - this event brings together expert insights on two key areas impacting residential conveyancing today.
Monday 23rd March - MLRO & COLP Dinner in partnership with Amiqus, invites MLROs and COLPs to an exclusive evening of fine dining and peer-to-peer discussion. This will be held from 6.30pm at Blackfriars Restaurant. Spaces are limited for this event.
Thursday 26th of March 2026 Our AGM will be held at Northern Counties Club, 11 Hood Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 6LH to arrive at 5.30pm for a 6pm meeting. This will be followed by the Spring Supper. At the AGM we will be electing our new standing committee and I will have the great pleasure of handing the baton on as President to our 200th President of the Society Lesley Fairclough.
If you would like any more information about any of the above or book any tickets, please contact Sanchia or our office via e-mail: mail@newcastlelawsociety.co.uk.
Please do get involved and encourage your firm or others to do likewise and join as members using this link: https://www.newcastlelawsociety.co.uk/index.cfm/membership/ Please note that there are corporate rates for larger firms also. Please also follow our page on LinkedIn.