NEWS

Lady Poole will continue to sit as a senator in the Court of Session and High Court of Justiciary.

The Chamber President is responsible for reporting to the Senior President of Tribunals and following the Senior President of Tribunals’ strategic direction for the leadership of the chamber.

 The UTAAC is one of four chambers of the Upper Tribunal and deals with appeals against decisions made by lower tribunals and organisations including:

• social security and child support
• war pensions and armed forces compensation
• mental health
• special education needs or disabilities
• disputes heard by the General Regulatory Chamber

 It also handles applications for judicial review of decisions made by:

• First-tier Tribunal (Criminal Injuries Compensation)
• other First-tier Tribunals where there is no right of appeal.

Lady Poole

Lady Poole was appointed as a Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland in January 2020.

She graduated with first class honours from Oxford University in Law in 1991 (BA Jurisprudence, MA). She completed a postgraduate Masters in 1993 (M.St, Oxon), and went on to qualify as a solicitor of England and Wales in London in 1996. After returning to Scotland, she became a Scottish solicitor in 1997 and an advocate in 1998. She was appointed as a Standing Junior Counsel to the Scottish Government in 2002, Second Standing Junior in 2009, and First Standing Junior in 2010. In 2012, she became a Queen's Counsel. She served as an ad hoc Advocate Depute (prosecutor in the High Court) in 2013.

In 2014 she was appointed as a part-time UK First-tier Tribunal Judge in the Social Entitlement Chamber which she combined with practice at the bar. She was elevated to a salaried judge of the UK Upper Tribunal in 2018. She was appointed to sit in the Upper Tribunal for Scotland in 2020. She chairs the Advisory Council of Messengers-at-Arms and Sheriff Officers.

Lady Poole is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, after completing a course in arbitration at the University of Aberdeen. She has worked at the universities of Dundee and Edinburgh as a research assistant and a tutor respectively.  Between 2014 and 2024 she served as Chancellor, first for the Diocese of Argyll and the Isles, and then for the Diocese of Edinburgh of the Scottish Episcopal Church.  She is a co-author of a book on judicial review with Sheriff Frances McCartney and Sheriff Lorna Drummond (A Practical Guide to Public Law Litigation in Scotland Drummond, McCartney and Poole, 2019), and is a contributor to Court of Session Practice edited by the late Lord MacFadyen.