It is a little over 45 years since Lord Reed’s previous graduation at Edinburgh when, on 14 July 1978, he received the degree of LLB in the company of four others who would go on to become professors at Edinburgh Law School: George Gretton, Anne Griffiths, Hector MacQueen, and Kenneth Reid.

After graduating with a first at Edinburgh – one of only four students to do so – Lord Reed moved on to Oxford to study for a DPhil, before returning to Edinburgh to prepare for admission to Faculty.

His career since then has been one of outstanding distinction and achievement. After a busy practice at the bar, mainly in the fields of commercial and public law, he was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1995 and a judge of the Court of Session and High Court three years later. He was then just 41, the youngest person to be appointed to the Court of Session bench within living memory.

Lord Reed served as a judge in Edinburgh for 14 years before becoming a justice of the UK Supreme Court in London in 2012. In 2020, he was appointed to lead the court as its president.