News

A Holyrood committee has backed another prisoner release scheme amid warnings of an “emergency situation” in Scotland’s prisons.

A multi-national company has been fined £176,000 for failing to prevent excessive smoke and noise pollution at the Mossmorran petrochemical plant in Fife. ExxonMobil Chemical Ltd pled guilty at Kirkcaldy Sheriff Court to breaching pollution control regulations at the Cowdenbeath plant on vario

Gibson Kerr has welcomed Phil Bonnar as a senior associate in the family law team, Emma Kennie as a purchase & sale negotiator and appraiser in the property team, and Faye Lipton as a senior solicitor in the family law team. Briege Valentine has also been promoted to senior solicitor in the firm

A trio from Holmes Mackillop Solicitors is all set to raise funds for The Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice by going on the run under cover of darkness at the John Muir Way Nocturnal Ultra Marathon on Saturday 8 November. The challenge is ‘simple’: runners have six hours to complete

The number of arrests and inspections targeting illegal workers in Scotland has risen sharply over the past year, with new Home Office figures showing a near 30 per cent increase. Between October 2024 and September 2025, Immigration Enforcement officers arrested more than 350 illegal workers and car

Pedestrians are to be fined for speeding if they walk or run faster than six kilometres per hour in Slovakia. The new speed limit was agreed in the Slovak parliament yesterday through an amendment to new road traffic legislation, according to Swiss website Bluewin.

A rapist who drugged two women before sexually abusing them while they were incapacitated has been jailed for nine years. Kenan Baki spiked the drinks of both women after meeting them at a nightclub in Kirkcaldy, Fife, on 2 September 2023. Prosecutors at the High Court in Edinburgh played CCTV which

The Scottish Sentencing Council has detailed amendments to its draft sentencing guidelines for rape offences in a response to a public consultation. The response, set out in a report published today, "focuses on addressing those matters of most interest to respondents and explains how the guidelines

Harper Macleod has welcomed 23 new trainee solicitors, a record intake for the firm, making it one of the largest employers of legal graduates in Scotland.

A solicitor’s failure to comply with regulators and court orders “undermines the status of the profession” according to the Court of Session. At a hearing this week the court stopped short of finding a solicitor in contempt of court for failure to comply with a court order to deliv

The Access to Justice Foundation (ATJF) has set out how it will spend millions of pounds in undistributed damages from opt-out collective action cases in the UK's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT). Around £3.8 million was awarded to the charity in September 2025 in undistributed damages from t

Charities should support anti-SLAPP reforms in Scotland to promote transparency and accountability in the sector, campaigners have said. Powerful individuals and businesses are normally those accused of using so-called strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) to avoid scrutiny.

The head of a committee dealing with delays in drunk driving prosecutions has been charged with drunk driving – and has seen her own case delayed. Linsey LaMontagne is director of the Clark County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council (CJCC) in southern Nevada, covering an area including Las V

Balfour and Manson has strengthened its family law and personal injury teams with the promotions of Katie Albiston, Iona Campbell, Emily Deans and Alannah Jones to associate. In Aberdeen, Ms Albiston has become an associate in the family law team while Ms Campbell has been promoted to associate in p

A formal investigation into the risks and challenges faced by consumers in Scotland in the used car market has been launched by Consumer Scotland. Complaints about used car sales are consistently high and the investigation will seek to identify the most harmful issues and propose recommendations to