News

Three members of the Faculty of Advocates have been appointed as full-time advocate deputes in the Crown Office. Eric Robertson, Derick Nelson and Greg Farrell all served as ad hoc prosecutors in recent months, and have now joined the resident team of Crown counsel in Chambers Street.

Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf has hailed progress on a strategy to "create safer and more resilient" communities across Scotland. Mr Yousaf thanked partners for the work done to achieve a number of key justice outcomes as part of an annual update.

David Hossack extols the benefits of mediation following the recent publication of a report from Holyrood. I read with great interest the recently issued report of the Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament entitled "I won't see you in court: alternative dispute resolution in Scotland". As a p

Zaynab Al Nasser, a senior solicitor at Turcan Connell, has been appointed president of Scottish Women in Business (SWIB), a networking group for business women in the west of Scotland.  Her plans for the year are centred around change, both in terms of how SWIB operates and supporting mem

Westwater Advocates is celebrating the service of Christina Ballantyne, who today marks the outstanding achievement of 35 years' work with Faculty Services Ltd. Ms Ballantyne began her career with a two-month spell in the mailroom before she was quickly promoted to the accounts team, where

A recent decision in the Court of Session underlines the importance of adhering to the statutory time limits in raising personal injury actions, writes Mike Kemp. The general rule is that a personal injury claim should be either settled by agreement or a court action raised and served on the defende

Law firms and other employers have taken action to tackle mental health stigma as part of World Mental Health Day today. ScotRail, Apex Hotels, engineering company Babcock and Burness Paull LLP have joined together with the See Me programme, to highlight the potential impact of mental health stigma

A new partnership dedicated to tackling rural crime in the north east and improving safety in remote communities has been launched. The North East Scotland Rural Crime & Safety Partnership is comprised of more than 20 partners involved in rural affairs who have pledged a commitment to sharing th

Thorntons Solicitors recently visited Kingspark Primary School in Dundee to donate a batch of iPads which will help with weekly classroom activities.

A court in Madrid has found that a former doctor took a newborn baby from its mother during the Franco era and gave it away in the first trial of the "stolen babies" scandal. While he was found guilty, the incident occurred too long ago for 85-year-old Eduardo Vela to be convicted.

A claimant was reprimanded in Dublin Circuit Civil Court after addressing the judge as "love". James Flynn, 46, had been addressing defence counsel Adrianne Fields as "love" but was sharply rebuked when he did the same to Judge Sarah Berkeley.

Two teenagers who were given custodial sentences after one pled guilty to behaving in a threatening and abusive manner and the other admitted a charge of assault have had their appeals against the sentences imposed rejected. The appellants claimed that the sheriff failed to properly take into accoun

The Scottish government has been accused of “selling the silverware” of Scotland’s courts for a fraction of their value. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) began closing one in five sheriff and justice of the peace courts in 2013, despite warnings of an increased work

The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service (SCTS) has announced plans to publish a new statistical bulletin providing quarterly data on criminal case activity in the Scottish courts for the first time. The first Quarterly Criminal Court Statistics bulletin, covering the first quarter of 2018, is now

Support has been voiced by the Faculty of Advocates for ending the tacit relocation of commercial leases. The doctrine of tacit relocation is one of the issues raised by the Scottish Law Commission in a discussion paper, Aspects of Leases: Termination.