News

The Law Society of Scotland has said the effects of an additional tax on second homes should be monitored closely to ensure that people who are simply trying to move house are not caught out by the proposed new charge. The lawyers' body intervened ahead of the stage 3 debate on the Land and Building

Kenny Crawford A total of 97,701 residential property sales worth more than £16.5 billion took place across Scotland in 2015, according to new statistics from Registers of Scotland (RoS).

Graham Ogilvy The distribution of the Scottish Legal News Annual Review 2016 is expected to be concluded this week.

Mark Burgess DLA Piper will host a free seminar this Friday on the imminent changes to second home buying following the introduction of the extra charge for buy-to-let properties and second homes which was supported by MSPs last month.

A trial at Stirling Sheriff Court was abandoned last week after a witness was approached in the pub by a juror, The Courier reports. The trial of Alexander McKinlay, 28, over the alleged abduction of his ex-girlfriend was brought to a premature end and a fresh trial was ordered by Sheriff Wylie Robe

An aspiring US lawyer is taking her law school to court for allegedly inflating figures relating to the number of its graduates in employment. Anna Alaburda, 37, is the first law graduate to take her school to court over employment figures, The New York Times reports.

Independent MP Natalie McGarry has been asked to apologise and make a charitable donation after falsely accusing the leader of a political campaign of being a Holocaust denier. A spokesperson for the Scotland in Union group said it wanted Ms McGarry to issue a "suitable apology" after tweets she mad

In an article headlined "Claim by way of plea is ‘effective’ to interrupt prescription in relation to an obligation", published in yesterday's edition of Scottish Legal News, we mistakenly referred to the defender in a case as Lady Iam Hazel Virginia Whitehouse-Christ-Grant. The defender's name

A claim made by way of a plea is a “relevant claim” sufficient to interrupt the running of the five-year prescription period, appeal judges have ruled. The Inner House of the Court of Session held that a claim need not be made by a formal conclusion or counterclaim, in a case was about a dispute

Joe FitzPatrick The Scottish government has been lambasted over a change to lobbying legislation which would create a loophole allowing dozens of organisations to avoid reporting lobbying activity.

The Faculty of Advocates has underscored a need to protect confidentiality between intellectual property advisors and their clients in cross-border cases. A questionnaire on cross-border aspects of client/patent attorney privilege (CAP) asked if there was a need to protect communications between IP

Martin Darroch The corporate team at Harper Macleod enjoyed a record year in 2015, seeing it ranked in the top three dealmakers in Scotland.

Gordon MacRae Humanists have launched an education campaign called Enlighten Up, calling on the Scottish government to stop allowing unelected religious representatives to sit on council education committees.

(L-R): Sheriff Principal Derek Pyle, tourism minister Fergus Ewing, councillor Helen Carmichael and Eric McQueen

The University of Strathclyde Law Clinic recently closed a case which saw its client receive a payment of £40,000. Seven volunteer student advisors worked on the case in question over a period of four years, and the law clinic said it was delighted to have been able to assist the client in her disp