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Donald MacLeod has been in practice as a member of the Scottish Bar since 1978. He took Silk in Scotland in 2005.
In recent years he has tended to undertake work in the fields of employment, immigration, personal injury, clinical negligence and crime. As employment counsel, he acts both for claimants and employers, and he regularly appears before immigration tribunals. His experience in the associated fields of personal injury and clinical experience extends as far back as the 1980’s when he undertook work for pursuers (as plaintiffs are called in Scotland) in cases of industrial industry and disease. His father was a consultant in respiratory diseases and, by virtue of access to his father’s textbooks, Donald developed a particular interest in the aetiology of asbestos-related diseases. He was instructed regularly in such cases and also on behalf of the NHS Central Legal Office in Edinburgh which undertook the representation of Scottish health boards in cases of clinical negligence.
Donald MacLeod has extensive experience of criminal practice both at first instance and on appeal, and recently retired as Secretary to the Faculty of Advocates Criminal Bar Association. He has undertaken occasional first-instance prosecution work for the Crown in the (Scottish) High Court of Justiciary, and has for many years led the defence in trials for murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, rape, serious assault, historic sexual abuse, controlled drugs and baby-shaking. In 2001/02 he undertook a year-long diploma course in forensic medicine and science offered by the University of Glasgow in order to refresh his knowledge in these fields. His most recently reported murder appeal is Poole v. H.M. Advocate.
Donald MacLeod has also undertaken representation in the arena of regulatory crime. In a three-week trial he represented a farmer accused of defrauding the Scottish Office over European grants for agricultural drainage, while in another case lasting for about ten days he successfully defended a company prosecuted at the behest of the Health & Safety Executive in respect of a supposedly defective scaffold. He has held both firearms and shotgun certificates for many years and sits on the Scottish Committee of the principal British shooting organisation, which he was asked to advise following the Dunblane shootings. He has appeared in many criminal cases involving firearms as well as representing certificate-holders in revocation cases. He also has extensive knowledge of the law governing Scottish salmon fisheries.
In 2010, he represented a bereaved family before a fatal accident inquiry in a case where an infant had been asphyxiated in a domestic roller-blind cord. Some time ago, he acted in another fatal accident inquiry as junior counsel for the survivors of an oil-rig explosion in the North Sea, where a radio operator had been killed. The inquiry, in Aberdeen, lasted for almost a year, and he prepared for his senior the cross-examination of many American petroleum engineering expert witnesses, as a result of which he acted regularly for BP in the fields of commercial, environmental and shipping law.
Donald is regularly commended by those instructing him. His most recent read as follows - 'The professionalism with which you handled the case was very impressive, particularly given you were standing in at short notice. I am of course most grateful for the role you played in securing a successful outcome'.
He is reasonably fluent in French.
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