Leslie Cumming

LESLIE Cumming, who has died of cancer aged 71, was a former chief accountant and deputy chief executive of the Law Society of Scotland (LSS), where he helped regulate Scotland's solicitors to enhance the protection of their clients, the general public.

The work of Mr Cumming, widely known as Les, is credited with leading to a huge improvement in turnaround times for handling clients' complaints about lawyers and put the LSS at the leading edge among equivalent bodies elsewhere in the world.

He became best-known UK-wide, however, after a masked, paid hitman brutally stabbed him 12 times in the face and body outside his Murrayfield, Edinburgh, home in January 2006.

Mr Cumming survived the trauma but was left with the knife scars and went through skilful plastic surgery to restore his face. He retired later that year, although he insisted he was stepping down to allow new faces in the LSS, not because of his ordeal.

Although the attacker, Irish-born martial arts expert Robert Graham, was traced via DNA samples and convicted of attempted murder in 2011, the motive for the attack has never emerged. Police believed Mr Cumming was targeted by a "disgruntled" member of the legal profession because of his work in exposing crooked lawyers. Graham, who fled to Australia to evade capture a few days after the attack but was later extradited, boasted to workmates that he had been paid £10,000 by a man he didn't know -- driving a BMW -- and had "done a judge in."

The case caused a furore in Scottish legal circles and beyond. Mr Cumming's boss at the time, the then LSS chief executive Douglas Mill, told The Herald yesterday: "even by the standards of the time, it was shocking and appalling." Many in Scotland, he said were "declaring open season on solicitors, the Law Society and its staff at the time. Some price to pay for being good at your job."

Long before Graham was traced and arrested, police interviewed many solicitors, some suspected of money-laundering and some known to have been upset by Mr Cumming's inquiries into suspected corruption. Some faced trial as a result of his relentless crackdown and inspections of their books. He gave police the names of at least two solicitors banned for professional misconduct or embezzling, who may have had a grudge against him.

Leslie Harry Cumming was born on July 14, 1943, in the Strathspey village of Cromdale, at the time in Morayshire but now part of the Highland Council Area. Although his parents moved to the central belt when he was a boy, he remained proud of his Highland roots.

He attended Falkirk High School and Dunfermline High before going to the University of Edinburgh to study chemistry. But he decided to changed tack and qualified in 1967 as a chartered accountant. After two years audit experience in Edinburgh, he worked as an accountant in industry, first for a Fife linoleum factory and later for the big food wholesalers Watson & Philip, which serviced hotels, hospitals and oil rigs.

He was hired by the Law Society of Scotland, based at Drumsheugh Gardens, Edinburgh, in 1984 and was later promoted to deputy chief executive.

The Society is the professional governing body for Scottish solicitors, aiming to shape the law for the benefit of both the public and the legal profession itself. Mr Cumming retired from the Society in 2006, nine months after the stabbing incident, and set up his own part-time consultancy, Leslie Cumming Consultancy Services, in Murrayfield.

"To say that Les Cumming's job was as chief Accountant of the Society does not remotely do him justice," former LSS CEO Mr Mill told The Herald." He defined the role. He grew it, developed it and lived and breathed it. It's not just that he was good at it - e WAS it. "He once called me from Dundee where had given a lecture to lawyers on fraud and theft. 'I'm fine, Douglas, but I'll not be back till later. While I was lecturing, someone stole my car."

Lorna Jack, current CEO of the Society, added: "His promotion to deputy chief executive highlighted the importance of his role within the Society at that time and the work he did to improve how solicitors run their businesses and, most importantly, enhance protections for the clients. He oversaw major improvements to the way law firms were regulated in order to protect the public. He also oversaw and instigated huge change in our regulatory work and financial monitoring, which resulted in more robust processes and greater levels of public protection."

On his office wall in Drumsheugh Gardens, Mr Cumming had a cartoon showing him hammering on the door of a solicitor's office and bellowing: 'Open up in the name of the Law Society. I've come to close you down.'" In his retirement, Mr Cumming was a DIY fanatic, a keen gardener, a closet Phil Collins fan and enjoyed his golf at the Bruntsfield Links outside Edinburgh.

Leslie Cumming died in St. Columba's Hospice, Edinburgh. He is survived by his wife Ann, children Neil, Lisa and Lindsay and several grandchildren he doted on.