Features

With the UK government protections to prevent a flood of corporate insolvencies all now tailing off, will 2022 see the much talked about "tsunami" of insolvencies? Market views on that are mixed but it does seem certain that there will be at least a significant upturn in insolvencies compared to 202

LGBT+ History Month gives us time to reflect on the experiences of LGBT+ people and key moments that have affected and united the LGBT+ community. This year’s theme is Politics in Art and, each week, members of the Shepherd and Wedderburn LGBTA+ Focus Group are showcasing influential pieces of

Editor's note: All animals are cancellable, but some are more cancellable than others. That is the inference to be drawn from the manner in which we pick and choose history's villains. David Hume is out but Marie Stopes, eugenicist and admirer of Adolf Hitler, is apparently in. Edinburgh Council has

The recent high profile case of Tylicki v Gibbons in the English High Court reiterates that professional sportspersons can successfully sue their fellow competitors for negligence, writes Ahmed Khogali. The core issue of the legal dispute concerned a “duty of care” in sport. The case exa

The Scottish legal system can be a mystery to English lawyers and there are plenty aspects of Scots law which are (understandably) entirely alien to our friends south of the border. One area of practice on which Scots and English lawyers can agree is the principles applicable to the interpretation o

Rosemary Gallagher spoke to 'Colston Four' barrister Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh, who has been named lawyer of the month in our sister publication Irish Legal News. She discusses the chance events and encounters that led her to a life in human rights law. Barrister Blinne Ní Ghrá

“They thought I was a surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.” Frida Kahlo, 1953. In the second week of LGBT+ History Month, Shepherd and Wedderburn continues its exploration of politics in art. Lucy Campbell looks at the life and work of Fr

As the Scottish Law Commission nears the end of its 10th programme of law reform, its chair, Lady Paton, discusses some of its ongoing projects and work to improve the implementation rate of its reports. The appeal court judge, who was appointed chair of the commission on 1 January 2019 following th

The law commissions of England, Scotland and Wales have produced a joint report setting out their recommendations for a regulatory framework concerning automated vehicles. If the idea of vehicles capable of driving themselves dominating the local high street seems at present somewhat futuristic, sof

In a new article, Terra Firma's Maurice O'Carroll considers unauthorised development and immunity from planning enforcement. "Development is unauthorised when it has taken place in the absence of planning permission. A local planning authority (LPA) has the power to issue an Enforcement Notice (EN)

In a recent landmark decision, the English High Court allowed the claimant’s personal injury case against her mother’s GP on the basis that the claimant’s disability had been caused by negligent advice to her mother pre-conception, writes Klaudia Wasilewska. It is a well-establishe

The perverse jury can be a fair fickle beast. The acquital of four defendants who quite clearly broke the law when they pulled down the statue of Edward Colston is a case in point. Manifestly, it was wantonly remiss of Bristol's Labour Council and Mayor to risk leaving the said effigy of the reprehe

The Stair Society has highlighted a fascinating remnant from Edinburgh's legal past in the form of sanctuary stones, which offered safe refuge to debtors. It tweeted: "The streets of Edinburgh have some fascinating links with legal history. An example is the sanctuary stones outside Holyrood Palace.

On 22 December the Scottish government ushered in a reform of the legal services market that has been sitting on the statute books for more than a decade, when it authorised the Law Society of Scotland to begin acting as an approved regulator under the Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010. This change

Copycat branding is nothing new; we regularly see it happening where a store sells an own-brand product (usually for a lower price) that very closely resembles a name-brand product. So, where should we draw the line between harmless lookalike and detrimental copycat? Last year, high-end gin company