Michael Upton has practised as an Advocate at the Scots Bar for 32 years, specialising in property, agricultural, planning and telecoms law. He has advised and represented a wide variety of Scots landowners, agricultural tenants and fishing interests in the Court of Session, the Sheriff Court, the Lands Tribunal for Scotland and the Scottish Land Court.
He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, an Accredited Mediator with the London Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution, and in addition to his work as a litigation lawyer, as a panel member with the Faculty of Advocates’ Dispute Resolution Service he practises as an agricultural Arbitrator and Mediator.
Michael also serves as an External Examiner to the Law Society of Scotland. For 20 years he has led the Bar’s outreach MiniTrials programme for school children. In his spare time he is a member of the volunteer staff of St Columba’s Hospice and the congregation of the German-Speaking Church of Edinburgh.
Michael holds degrees in Philosophy from Oxford University, Scots Law from Edinburgh University and European Law from the European University at Florence. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and two children, but hails from rural Glencorse in Midlothian and has long-standing connections with the Hebrides.