England: Lord Keen of Elie given civil justice brief

A former Dean of Faculty has been given the civil justice brief by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

Lord Keen of Elie QC was made a justice minister this week and will represent he MoJ in the House of Lords.

Among his responsibilities will be legal services regulation, claims management regulation and relations with the profession.

He will also represent the UK at the International Bar Association conference in the US this September.

Lord Keen, who took silk in 1993, was a chairman of the Scottish Conservatives and standing junior counsel to the Department of Trade and Industry in Scotland between 1986 and 1993. He has served as chairman of the Appeal Committee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland (2000-2004) and as chairman of the Police Appeals Tribunal.

He has been regularly instructed in the Commercial Court, in the Inner House of the Court of Session and in the UK Supreme Court in a range of commercial and public law cases. He was elected Dean of the Faculty of Advocates in 2007 and served in this post until 2014.

He became a member of the English bar in 2009, and was elected a bencher of Middle Temple in 2011.