Lady Rae

Lady Rae was admitted as a solicitor in 1974 and worked as an apprentice and assistant at Biggart Lumsden and Co, Balfour and Manson, Biggart Baillie & Gifford and Ross Harper & Murphy between 1974 and 1977. In 1977 she became a partner at Ross Harper & Murphy, until 1981.

In the early 1980s, she was on the Glasgow Bar Association Committee and served as secretary from 1981 – 1982.

She was junior counsel at the Faculty of Advocates from 1982 and appointed QC in 1992.

She was a member of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics between 1996-98; a member of the Sentencing Commission for Scotland between 2003 and 2006; the Glasgow branch chair of the Scottish Association for the Study of Offending from 2003 – 2014, now the hon president of the Glasgow branch; and a member of Glasgow University “Legal 40” from 2010, mentoring diploma students.

She currently mentors law students at various stages in their legal studies. She has given lectures on a variety of legal topics. She became an ambassador for Young Citizens London from 2018.

She served as a temporary sheriff from 1987-1997, a sheriff at Glasgow from 1997 and a temporary judge at the Court of Session from 2004-2013. From 2001-2007 she was a member (and vice-chair from 2005) of the Parole Board for Scotland.

Lady Rae was appointed a senator of the College of Justice in Scotland in January 2014 and in 2017 she was appointed as an Upper Tribunal judge in immigration and asylum cases until the end of 2018.

In 2019 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of laws from the University of Glasgow in recognition of her contribution to Scots law.