News

Ever-increasing interest in Scotland’s land is opening up the prospects of a win-win that benefits the nation and nature like never before, a major conference will hear today. Natural capital is the headline topic at the virtual three-day Land Connection 2021 conference, which brings experts t

Public spending on legal aid has dropped by £85 million over two decades, the Herald on Sunday reports. In 2007/8 the figure was £155 million while in 2019/20 it had fallen to £130.85m, a drop of £85m when accounting for inflation. Gross spending has declined by a further 23

Police officers came to the rescue of seven baby squirrels whose tails were tangled together. A concerned citizen in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan rang 911 after spotting the troubled scurry of squirrels.

The UK Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal by a Vietnamese asylum seeker challenging a decision of an immigration tribunal under fast-track procedure rules that were found to be structurally unfair to refuse her application. The appeal on behalf of TN challenged the validity of a decision made und

A new system of regulation claiming to promote "accountability, transparency and independence" is being proposed to "meet the needs of the legal sector and consumers". A consultation has been launched today and will run until 24 December to seek views on options to change the way legal services are

A new approach to interviews for vulnerable child victims and witnesses is to be rolled out across Scotland. The Scottish government is funding the £2 million initiative – which involves pre-recorded investigative interviews of children conducted jointly by police officers and social wor

Alastair Smith takes up his new role as a director at Lindsays from today, while Darren Lightfoot and Brian Pollock have become senior associates. Mr Smith’s directorship is in the corporate and technology team and he is based across the firms’ offices in Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow. H

Professor Donna McKenzie-Skene, of Aberdeen University's School of Law, has retired after 29 years of service. She joined the school as a lecturer in 1992 and was promoted first to senior lecturer in 1999 and to professor earlier this year. Before joining the university, she was a court lawyer for f

Charmaine Trainor has been promoted to executive director at Scullion LAW. Ms Trainor began her career at Scullion LAW nine years ago and has progressed from working in the firm's reception.

A solicitor who encouraged a client to invest in a firm that had links to a rogue businessman has been struck off for professional misconduct by the Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal (SSDT). Kenneth Macleod, 85, used funds to invest in the company in the knowledge police had raised serious co

Thorntons has welcomed six further trainee solicitors this September. This follows an earlier intake of ten trainees in March of this year.

Complainants are waiting more than 600 days for justice after reporting a crime – a rise of more than 50 per cent in the past year. Figures from the Ministry of Justice show that in the second quarter of this year, the time between a crime occurring and a case being resolved in court was 622 d

A group of parents are suing California over schools' "promotion" of Aztec gods and deities who were once honoured with human sacrifice. Part of a new model curriculum on ethnic studies invites pupils to chant about Tezkatlipoka, Quetzalkoatl, Huitzilopochtli, and Xipe Totek.

A judge in the Outer House of the Court of Session has found that the owner of a farm in Fife was not liable for injuries inflicted on a teenage stable hand by a racehorse that was stabled there. Milly Morrison sought reparations of £50,000 in solatium from James Oakden for a head injury and s

The Scottish government's 13-year delay in establishing an inquiry into childhood abuse in care was "woeful and wholly avoidable", a judge has said. Lady Smith, chair of the inquiry, made the comments in relation to the Scottish government’s response to a petition made to Holyrood in 2002 seek