News

The Boy Scouts of America has filed for bankruptcy as it faces legal challenges over thousands of allegations of sexual abuse. The 110-year-old body lodged papers at a court in Delaware as it attempts to negotiate a compensation plan for abuse victims.

A prisoner who was denied toilet paper for nearly three days apparently suffered no violation of his rights. Three inmates at a prison in the US state of Delaware brought a lawsuit after being forced to use newspaper for two-and-a-half days last August.

A man found guilty of murdering his friend after causing him to fall down a flight of stairs and repeatedly kicking and stamping on his head and body has successfully appealed against his conviction. Ralph Goldie was convicted of killing Jeremy Paradine following a drunken fight in a flat he sh

Lord Woolman has been appointed to the Inner House of the Court of Session. The judge has been appointed to the Second Division while Lord Pentland and Lord Doherty will also be appointed to the Inner House and will begin sitting in July and December respectively.

A new judge has honoured his late mother by taking her maiden name for his title, Lord Harrower. Sean Smith QC was sworn in as a Senator of the College of Justice at a ceremony led by Lord Carloway, the Lord President in Parliament House.

In the first of her interview series for Scottish Legal News, legal journalist Margaret Taylor interviews Angela Grahame on her time as Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Advocates.  Angela Grahame QC didn’t just break the mould when she became Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, she complete

A mere "one-and-a-half cheers" for the Inner House's five-judge ruling in Pert v McCaffrey, in which there was "no need" to invoke a doctrine of enrichment's subsidiarity in an analysis that was "much less sophisticated than it needed to be", writes Professor MacQueen. One cheerThe decision of a cou

Judge Tim Eicke will be delivering the 2020 Macfadyen Lecture at the Royal Society of Edinburgh on 26 March at 6:00 pm. The lecture will outline the existing Convention caselaw in relation to the environment and consider its potential and its limitations – both substantive and procedural &ndas

The Roman delict of iniuria is the focus of the first lecture in a three-part series delivered by Paul du Plessis, professor of Roman law at the University of Edinburgh. The Civil Law in Three Acts is the subject of this year's Alan Watson Memorial Lecture series.

A landmark ruling that a couple’s Islamic marriage falls within the scope of English marriage law but is void has been overturned by the Court of Appeal. In a judgment which could affect thousands of Muslims in England and Wales, the court has said that the "nikah" ceremony was an invalid cere

The journalist and legal commentator, Joshua Rozenberg QC (hon), will launch his new book in Scotland at an event chaired by the Faculty of Advocates' Mungo Bovey QC. Mr Rozenberg is guest speaker at a Literary Lunch by BOOKMARK book festival at Ballathie House Hotel, Perthshire, on Sunday, 14

A set of seminars at Edinburgh University aim to examine the role that law has played in facilitating the accumulation and distribution of wealth and the inequality that has resulted. The first seminar in the 'Law, Wealth and Inequality' project will focus on the role law, and in particular property

Work to establish a dedicated Mental Health Court in Northern Ireland is set to move forward later this year. The Department of Justice has confirmed that a project board for the proposed problem-solving court has been established and plans will be developed in conjunction with other stakeholders in

A polygamist with three wives and ten children has told a court that he helped to defraud the US government of nearly $470 million (€434m). The huge sum obtained through a clean energy subsidy scam was allegedly spent on real estate in the US and Turkey and expensive cars including a $1.7 milli

A homeowner who sued his former lawyers after they failed to advise him to include a survivorship clause when transferring the title of his property into the joint names of himself and his then fiancée, who later died and left her half-share to her children from a previous relationship, has h