News

Holyrood’s Justice Committee is conducting “post-legislative scrutiny” of the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006. The committee describes it as one of the most important pieces of legislation on family law in recent years. The committee invited a number of organisations – including the Law Socie

Merger talks between Maclay Murray and Spens (MMS) and Addleshaw Goddard have broken down. It was reported the firms were in merger talks in November but neither firm had gotten to the stage of a partnership vote.

A pub in Glasgow has become the first in Scotland to be handed a court penalty for showing English football matches via unauthorised foreign broadcasts. The Merchants Quay Bar was hit with the £6,000 fine as Premier Leagueofficials crackdown on copyright infringement.

Steven Jansch The insolvency regime seems to be in a perpetual state of flux, writes Steven Jansch.

Dr Andrew McGettrick The Edinburgh based European patent attorney firm of Alistair Hindle Associates has announced that Dr Andrew McGettrick has been appointed as a director of the company.

Lawyers have been praised for helping to get a landmark human rights case into court by working on it without charge. Although legal aid was in due course granted for the judicial review action in the Court of Session, much preparatory work was carried out for free by senior and junior counsel and s

Louise Sloan The Aberdeen Law Project (ALP) has today announced the appointment of its sixth student director – Louise Sloan.

Professor Roddy Paisley Professor Roddy Paisley, chair of Scots law at the University of Aberdeen – best known for his work on the law of servitudes and property law – has written a novel entitled Ballycarson Blues.

The London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP) is hosting a conference to address the challenges in the Middle East and Africa marked by political instability and a drop in oil prices. The main themes include:

A complainer in a domestic abuse case who was refused legal aid to challenge an attempt by the accused to recover her medical records as part of his defence has successfully appealed against a decision that she had no right to challenge the application. A judge in the Court of Session ruled that any

Legal experts have criticised the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service for reproducing offensive comments in a court report on its website. The comments came from a criminal appeal case involving a man who exchanged a number of “grossly offensive” and “indecent” jokes with a friend on a soc

Neil Greig Campaigners have warned drug drivers are more likely to think they can get away with driving under the influence in Scotland because of the lack of a criminal limit or roadside warnings.

The latest BDO FraudTrack report shows that the total value of reported fraud in Scotland during 2015 rose 80.9 per cent per cent to £18.164 million from £10.038m in 2014. Across the whole of the UK the latest FraudTrack report, which examines all cases of reported fraud cases over £50,000, found

GCHQ has won a legal case over its ability to hack suspects’ phones and computers after a tribunal ruled “equipment interference” was lawful. Seven internet providers as well as Privacy International challenged the practice, which is also called “computer network exploitation”.

The European Court of Human Rights(ECtHR) has unanimously ruled that the article 7 right of a juror convicted for contempt of court after she conducted research on the internet was not violated. Theodora Dallas complained that the common law offence of contempt of court had not been sufficiently cle