Solicitor General
BJ Gill KC was appointed Solicitor General in June 2026.
Responsibilities
The Solicitor General is a Scottish Law Officer. The Solicitor General supports the Lord Advocate in the exercise of the Lord Advocate’s functions, and may exercise, as required, their statutory and common law powers.
Biography
BJ Gill KC has extensive experience in civil and criminal law.
He was a full-time Advocate Depute from 2021 and a Senior Advocate Depute from 2025 until his appointment as Solicitor General in June 2026.
Before becoming an Advocate Depute, he had a general practice at the Scottish Bar with a focus on public and administrative law and valuation for rating. He was Standing Junior to the Advocate General for Scotland and the Home Office from 2012 until 2021. He acted in many public law cases, principally in relation to immigration/asylum and planning matters.
He appeared for the UK Government Law Officers in their reference to the Supreme Court under section 33 of the Scotland Act 1998 for a ruling on the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament’s UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Legal Continuity) (Scotland) Bill, the first such reference to be made.
He is a graduate of the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh and Pennsylvania. Before calling to the Bar in 2006, he had a career in New York and London as a finance lawyer and spent two years working in Whitehall as a government drafter.
He has a particular interest in asylum law and for several years was a volunteer lawyer with European Lawyers in Lesvos, a pro-bono legal advice project based in Greek refugee camps.