Features

With a father who was a procurator fiscal and two older siblings who had entered the legal profession too, meal-time conversations in Calum MacNeill’s childhood home were very much focused on the law. Given that background, it is perhaps unsurprising that the young Mr MacNeill was determined t

Fishing rights may have been one of the main sticking points of the Brexit negotiations, but not all recent fish-related battles have been waged between Britain and Brussels. In a case that played out much closer to home, the Scottish Creel Fishermen’s Federation (SCFF) challenged the Scottish

Andrew Stevenson reflects on a literary-cum-legal encounter between two of Scotland's greatest writers.  Two hundred years ago two of Scotland’s most eminent men of literature met in court. One of them, James Hogg, the self-styled Ettrick Shepherd, is best known for his novel The Private

There cannot be many advocates who would willingly compare themselves to a notorious despot, but Black Chambers’ Tony Lenehan is one. Having replaced Ronnie Renucci QC as president of the Scottish Criminal Bar Association (SCBA) at the tail-end of last year, Mr Lenehan likens his ascension to

In part two of his reflection on the life of Henry Dundas, Chris Holme retells the episode that would be his undoing, see part one here. It was a banking scandal on an epic scale involving flagrant misuse of public funds and fearless investigators.

When a school teacher told the teenage Iain Smith he should downgrade his ambition to become a lawyer and focus on becoming a paralegal instead, it could have gone one of two ways: he could have thrown in the towel there and then or he could have resolved to work harder than ever to prove it was the

Christopher Stanley, litigation consultant at Belfast-based KRW LAW LLP, reviews a new textbook on public law. As an English lawyer practising in Ireland – north and south – on a range of issues including the legacy of the conflict and the mother and baby homes scandal, to ask to review

To mark Black History Month, SLN is dedicating its ‘Our Legal Heritage’ feature to Scotland’s black history. As a child he was fed from a trough along with the other enslaved children on the plantation and regularly whipped, but Frederick Douglass would grow to become one of the mo

Chris Holme looks at the life of Henry Dundas, a controversial figure who has come under scrutiny this year in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. He’s the man I walk past every day but never get to see up close. That’s because he’s 140 feet up in St Andrew Square –

To mark Black History Month, SLN is dedicating its ‘Our Legal Heritage’ slot to Scotland’s black history.   For centuries the identity of a young black woman present in a portrait of Lady Elizabeth Murray that adorns the Ambassador’s room of Scone Palace was a myste

Much has been said about the plight of criminal defence lawyers in recent years, from the inadequacy of legal aid fees to the impracticality of working hours. Almost all of it has been from the point of view of practitioners with decades of experience in the sector, though. McGovern Reid solicitor M

The outbreak of war in 1914 prompted a business dispute that ultimately reached the House of Lords and influenced reform to English law. Kate Scarborough explains the details of the case. Cantiere San Rocco SA v Clyde Shipbuilding and Engineering Co Ltd [1923] SC (HL) 105 concerned a

Balfour & Manson partner Robert Holland is convinced that employment is the best practice area for a lawyer to work in because it offers what he describes as the “best combination of black-letter law with a human-interest angle”. As head of his firm’s employment practice he wou

During his lifetime, James Erksine, Lord Grange, Scotland’s Lord Justice Clerk from 1710 to 1714, was best known for his eccentric opposition to the Witchcraft Act of 1735 which aimed to ensure there would be no return to the infamous witch hunts which had claimed the lives of so many women. E

No matter how bitter, few divorces end with the murder of the presiding judge. But in one case from Scotland's bloody legal history, an irate husband, incensed at having to pay aliment to his ex-wife, took the ultimate revenge on the sitting judge: The Lord President Sir George Lockhart of Carnwath.