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Scott Trueman

The chance to get his life back and do more exciting work at the same time were the motivating factors for Scott Trueman to join the GLS.

He became a GLS lawyer in May 1999. After Call in 1996, he trained at the independent Bar in crime, family and common law work. “ I became disillusioned with the pay and the long hours, and wanted to change my practice without having to requalify as a solicitor,” he says. “I knew that the GLS offered high-quality, interesting work because I’d considered applying to it for a pupillage, though I didn’t get round to it in time!”

After joining the GLS, Scott spent the next two-and-a-half years working on personal injury litigation in TSol (Treasury Solicitors).

“The work was intellectually stimulating and I really enjoyed it,” he says. “I found the Government a very friendly place in which to work. There’s a public-spirited ethos, with a culture of helping colleagues rather than hindering them."

“I also found it refreshing not to be pigeon-holed into a particular area of law. The GLS doesn’t assume you can’t deal with novel subjects just because you’ve tended to specialise in one field. The opportunity is always there to move into different areas, and you gain transferable skills which you can apply to widely differing types of Government work.”

Scott took his present position, in the same Department, in early 2002. He now litigates in administrative law and conducts statutory appeals to the High Court and above for a wide range of Government Departments and public bodies. These include the Department for Constitutional Affairs, the Home Office, the Foreign Office and a number of Tribunals. In the past three years he has seen four cases through the House of Lords.

“The topics involved in my caseload are very diverse,” he says. “I cover military-related judicial review, some Courts Martial appeals, mental health work, appeals in Special Educational Needs and education work, and lots of human rights work. My judicial review claims cover every topic from driving licences to rail crashes, school standards and even a case on the Patagonian Toothfish - now on its way to the Lords!"

“One area I’ve found really interesting is the mental health work - it’s a developing field with lots of human rights implications. It has involved conducting a number of Tribunals in high-security hospitals, which was fascinating. I could not genuinely have said I had experience in many of these areas of work before joining the GLS. I had certainly never worked with Ministers.”

During the summer of 2003, Scott was part of the legal team providing witness support to the Ministry of Defence (MOD) in the Hutton inquiry. “It was very high profile work, and a major news story, “ he says. “It was a pressured time, but I gained fascinating insights into the political system which I wouldn’t have got anywhere else."

“When you work in Government, there’s obviously the bureaucracy, but I have never regretted becoming a GLS lawyer. It’s interesting to observe the numbers of lawyers who join the GLS from the city and never go back.”