Features

This year has singularly demonstrated to Paman Singh that a lawyer’s life can change dramatically in the space of a few short months. In March, the solicitor advocate who specialises in employment law at Weightmans in Glasgow was appointed by the The Lord President, Lord Pentland, as one of th

Is Sunday lunch still a thing? Only just, I discover when we search for a decent restaurant to offer a Sunday roast with all the trimmings. They are few and far between and we finally settle on 18, the rooftop bar and restaurant of Rusack’s Hotel in St Andrews. As the name suggests, it boasts

Vladimir Putin’s penchant for assassinating his political enemies is nothing new for Russian rulers. His former employers, the KGB and, before that, the NKVD, were dab hands at it. Stalin’s order to murder Leon Trotsky in exile in Mexico has plenty of parallels today giving this book con

“This heat is just unbearable.” “It’s roasting!” “I wish we could just be at home by the (paddling) pool.” These are just some of the things we have been hearing in workplaces around the UK this week, writes Marianne McJannett. Periods of extreme heat are be

Commercial disputes occasionally turn on points which appear technical in form but have potentially significant financial consequences. One such issue concerns the distinction between delivery of an executed agreement and delivery of the principal signed document itself, writes Ahsan Mustafa. The qu

Last week, I attended a showing at the EICC of a deeply shocking film entitled People’s Emergency Briefing. We have become accustomed recently to focusing on AI and national security as real and imminent threats to our future. This film, presented by Chris Packham, reminds us that the biggest

Practitioners will be all too familiar with the Law Society of Scotland’s ‘Standards of Conduct’, especially when it comes to the obligations owed to clients so as not to bring yourself and, indeed, the wider profession into disrepute, writes Thomas Mitchell. However, in my own fir

In May 2009 a meeting of residents of flats in Saltwater Mansions in Margate included Caroline Lane, a resident in a ground floor flat there. The meeting was somewhat contentious because of a dispute around essential repairs. Caroline Lane resided alone, and she challenged her liability for payment.

Businesses face a broader risk of prosecution from this month after new powers removed the restriction to economic crimes, exposing organisations to potential liability for a wide range of offences committed by senior managers, writes Sally Clark. In April, the Crime and Policing Act 2026 received r

In April this year, the High Court of England and Wales handed down a(nother) decision relating to the now notorious “Joe Donor”: Re N (Paternity: Unregulated Sperm Donor), write Professor Gillian Black and Robert Gilmour. The question for the court was whether, under English law, a stra

One of the more persistent misconceptions in court proceedings is that a witness's evidence can be undermined simply by producing another affidavit criticising that witness. In practice, matters are rarely so straightforward, writes Ahsan Mustafa. Courts do not resolve disputes by counting affidavit

Derek Nash believes the property developers – as well as book fans – can take inspiration from the transformation of the ‘birthplace of Harry Potter’. The rebirth of The Elephant House in Edinburgh has been a tale of tenacity and ingenuity. The efforts which led to its openin

To Inverness and McBain’s, a small family owned restaurant by the river, is our choice after a morning marvelling at the bronze age Clava Cairns and tramping through the steady drizzle of Culloden moor. My ancestors served in Lord Ogilvy’s regiment at Culloden and I once discovered an ac

The unsolved murder of Stevan Markovic, the Serbian bodyguard and associate of French film star Alain Delon, became an immense scandal in the Paris of 1968 engulfing the highest politicans in the land and highlighted Delon’s connections with gangsters. Rumours also abounded about orgies organ

It’s a long way from Serena Sutherland’s office beside the harbour in Kirkwall to the Law Society of Scotland’s headquarters in the west end of Edinburgh (more than 200 miles by air) but that doesn’t deter the new president of the Law Society of Scotland. Nor does it the prof