Features

Margaret Taylor interviews Robbie Brodie of Livingstone Brown on his recent triumph at the Court of Session. When Lord Boyd of Duncansby ruled last month that an Ayr-based adult day care centre must remain open for the foreseeable future he delivered a victory not just to the father who had filed th

He has attained folk hero status as a sort of Scottish Robin Hood and at Burns Suppers around the country this weekend his execution will be recalled with performances of ‘Macpherson’s Farewell’ also known as Macpherson’s ‘Rant’ or ‘Lament’. But who wa

It might be stretching things a bit to describe this football match in 1980 as part of our legal heritage but it does reflect the days when local faculties ran their own football teams – a practice now in decline – although we were pleased yesterday to report that the Glasgow Bar is mak

As a young lawyer, or ‘writer’, in the county town of Perth in the 1820s, Duncan Clark was a pillar of the community and a model of respectability.

Irish barrister Andrew McKeown critically examines the proposals put forward by legal tech expert Professor Richard Susskind in his latest book. Online Courts and the Future of Justice is a fascinating read for lawyers and non-lawyers alike. It is clear that Professor Susskind is sincerely

When adherents of a pre-World War One nudist craze in Germany decided to establish a club, their decision to name it after an 18th century Scottish judge seemed the most natural thing in the world. Berlin's Monboddo Bund remains one of the more unusual salutes to the Scottish judiciary but is testam

As you would expect of properties in Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, the Faculty of Advocates’ Lord Reid Building and Mackenzie Building are steeped in history. The Lord Reid Building, behind 142 High Street, is within an enclosed court and accessed via the pend known as New Assembly Close. It h

In 1937 a story emerged in the Irish press about a girl from Glasgow called Julia Clarke who had been sentenced, in absentia, to one month's imprisonment for “kissing a boyfriend in public”. Ms Clarke and the (notably unnamed) local boy had been seen kissing on church property in Blackro

A bid is underway to clear the name of a Scots sailor whose body was left hanging over the Thames for three years as a warning to other would-be pirates. Born in 1645 most likely in Dundee but possibly Greenock, Captain William Kidd's early life is obscure. It is believed that, like his father, he t

Lawyer and author Willie McIntyre was highly impressed with advocate Stephen O'Rourke's debut novel. A launch event is being held for the book at Waterstones in Edinburgh on November 7 and will be chaired by Murdo MacLeod QC. One third of royalties from the sale of the book in the UK will go to

Lauren Brown looks back at the long summer of 1597 when Scotland was swept by witch-finding fever. Between March and October 1597, Scotland was gripped by witchcraft hysteria. Around 400 people were tried for witchcraft and 200 are believed to have been executed. The number of people accused was dou

This year the legal community has reflected on the entry of women into the profession and the struggle for equality that has ensued. The Law Society of Scotland recounts the names of the women pioneers who have succeeded in law.

Seosamh Gráinséir recounts the Yelverton saga, litigated across the Scottish, English and Irish courts and which resulted in marriage reform in Ireland. On 15 August 1857, Maria Theresa Longworth and Major William Charles Yelverton got married in a Catholic Church near Rostrevor. They

In 1941 at a seancé in Portsmouth, the spirit of a sailor was said to have appeared to announce the sinking of HMS Barham. But the battleship, which had been sunk in an attack by German forces off the Egyptian coast, was not officially declared lost until a number of months later, an effort b

Irish Legal News assistant editor Connor Beaton reviews an account of the 1922 battle between supporters and opponents of the Anglo-Irish Treaty which all but destroyed the Four Courts, home to the superior courts of Ireland. For the last four years, the dome of the Four Courts in the heart of Dubli