Usman Tariq KC

Usman Tariq KC has extensive experience of high-value and complex commercial disputes and public law litigation. He is described in the Chambers & Partners UK Bar Guide as being “universally respected at the Bar, including by opponents and the judiciary” and a “very highly regarded practitioner” who has “the ear of the court” and is “very popular with the judiciary”. His core areas of practice include contractual, intellectual property, information technology, insolvency and professional negligence disputes. He has acted in some of the largest financial claims ever in the Scottish courts as well as in most of the reported intellectual property cases over the past decade in Scotland. He also specialises in administrative and public law where he has acted for and advised both Scottish and UK governments, including on issues as varied as devolution, tax and environmental impact assessments. He has appeared at all levels of the Scottish court system, including the UK Supreme Court. He also has experience of alternative dispute resolution having acted as counsel in mediations and arbitrations as well as the arbitrator in commercial disputes.

The breadth of his experience and expertise is recognised in the Chambers & Partners UK Bar Guide 2026 in which he is ranked as a leading individual in eight practice areas, the highest number of individual rankings for any advocate at the Scottish Bar. He is ranked as a leading senior counsel in the following eight practice areas in the current Chambers UK Bar Guide: (i) commercial dispute resolution; (ii) intellectual property; (iii) information technology; (iv) media law; (v) restructuring / insolvency; (vi) professional negligence; (vii) administrative and public law; and (viii) civil liberties and human rights. He is also ranked in the Legal 500 Guide 2026 for (i) commercial litigation; (ii) administrative and public law; and (iii) crime and regulatory. He also has experience in developing areas of law, including EU and UK sanctions law, and in relation to new technologies, such as cryptocurrencies. In 2025, he gave evidence to the Scottish Parliament on behalf of the Faculty of Advocates in relation to the Digital Assets (Scotland) Bill. As junior counsel, he was recognised as Advocate of the Year at the Law Awards of Scotland 2017 and the Legal 500’s Junior Counsel of the Year at the Scottish Bar at the Legal 500 UK Awards 2019.

Comments in the Chambers UK Bar Guide 2026 include “Usman Tariq has an extraordinary combination of commercial awareness, pragmatism and legal ability”; “Usman is a standout. He is really bright, analytical and unbelievably calm”; “Usman is exceptionally good with clients”; “Usman is involved in all the big cases. He is great. The judges really like him; he knows how to appeal to the ear of the court. He’s really well prepared and you know the judges listen to him”; and “Usman is exceptionally talented”.

He is highly respected within the profession which has led to him holding a large number of professional and public appointments as well as leadership roles. He was appointed as counsel to the UK Covid-19 Public Inquiry chaired by Baroness Heather Hallett for three years. He was a member of the legal team investigating core political and administrative governance and decision-making in relation to the pandemic. He was also a Standing Junior counsel to the UK Government in Scotland for nine years and latterly served as Second Standing Junior to the Advocate General for Scotland before his appointment as silk. He has served as a full-time Advocate Depute at the Crown Office prosecuting serious crime between 2021 and 2022. He is the Chair of JUSTICE Scotland, a cross-party law reform charity that works to reform the justice system across the UK. He is appointed by the Lord President as the advocate member of the Scottish Civil Justice Council, the statutory body responsible for keeping the civil justice system in Scotland under review and making recommendations on developments and changes to the justice system.

He is passionate about improving inclusion in the legal profession in Scotland. In 2017, he co-founded the Scottish Ethnic Minority Lawyers Association (SEMLA). SEMLA aims to improve ethnic diversity in the legal profession in Scotland. The group is supported by the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Advocates. SEMLA has collaborated with some of the largest law firms and organisations across the UK on events and work placements for law students from ethnic minority backgrounds. In 2021, he was appointed to the Law Society of Scotland’s Racial Inclusion Group which undertook a systematic review of racial inclusion in the profession and produced a report with recommendations. In 2023, he was appointed to the Scottish Government’s Future of the Legal Profession short-life working group. The purpose of this group is to examine the evidence and propose improvements to address the challenges of recruitment and retention in the profession and to provide support for the planning, collaboration and improvement of legal services in Scotland.

He is an alumnus of the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP). The IVLP is the U.S. Department of State’s premier professional exchange programme in which emerging foreign leaders in a variety of fields are invited to the U.S. to meet with professional counterparts and cultivate lasting relationships. In 2022, he spent time in Washington D.C., San Francisco, Portland and Montana meeting with various federal and state governmental bodies, NGOs and stakeholders in a human rights project on Advancing Minority Rights in Europe.

He is a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Young Academy of Scotland (YAS) and the RSE’s Justice Leaders Network. YAS brings together young professionals from all sectors to work together on projects that benefit Scotland and the world.

He called to the Bar as the Faculty’s Lord Reid scholar for 2010/2011. This scholarship is awarded annually to the outstanding candidate to the Bar. He is a graduate of the University of Glasgow and the University of Cambridge.

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