News

Two men in North Carolina who were wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a young girl more than three decades ago have received a $75 million payout, believed to be the largest in US history. Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, who are intellectually disabled half-brothers, spent decades on deat

Vialex has signed the Mindful Business Charter, joining a wide range of businesses and professional service firms around the world in a collective commitment to address the avoidable stresses in our working practices and to promote healthier and more effective ways of working. The charter, originall

A construction worker was threatened with jail time after wearing a T-shirt to a virtual court hearing. Detroit judge Ronald Giles reprimanded the defendant, who claimed he had been working a building site.

A judge in the Outer House of the Court of Session has ordered that the young child of a Canadian citizen be returned to Quebec to live with her after an application was made for his return under the Hague Convention on Child Abduction. The mother, ML, petitioned the court for an orde

Defence lawyers around Scotland have gone on strike today after last-minute talks with the Scottish government to obtain additional payments from its resilience fund failed. The Scottish Solicitors Bar Association held talks with Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf over the remainder of the fund yesterda

The Scottish government has made a conscious decision to deprive the legal aid system of funding. The number of lawyers able to service the scheme is dwindling. Wooed by COPFS or simply unwilling to be the sticking plaster in a broken system, they have left. As lawyers strike today, solicitor advoca

While remote hearings have proven useful over lockdown, they should not supplant in-person justice, says Dean of Faculty, Roddy Dunlop QC. When lockdowns were first imposed in Scotland, the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service – despite what might fairly be said to be years of under-funding &

Aberdein Considine has made a raft of senior promotions across the organisation.  The firm has promoted a total nine members of staff to director, senior associate, associate and senior solicitor levels, as well as appointing two new partners. 

The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission has referred the sentence of Dillin Armstrong to the High Court of Justiciary. On 26 August 2019, after a trial at the High Court in Edinburgh, the jury found the applicant and three co-accused guilty of the attempted murder of a young man. The jury foun

GCU Law has launched a dedicated website to campaign for the right to lifelong anonymity for complainers in sexual offence cases to be enshrined in Scots law. The Campaign for Complainer Anonymity, which is led by law lecturers Dr Andrew Tickell and Seonaid Stevenson-McCabe and GCU students, seeks t

Half of practising lawyers are experiencing depression and anxiety, according to a study by the California Lawyers Association (CLA) and the D.C. Bar. The findings come from a research project into the personal and workplace risk factors for mental health problems, substance use, and attrition among

An 81-year-old retired judge who made history as the first black man appointed to the Supreme Court of British Columbia has received an apology after being mistaken for a criminal suspect and put in handcuffs. Mr Justice Selwyn Romilly was briefly detained by police officers responding to reports of

Terra Firma Chambers’ spring programme of webinars concluded on Thursday 13 May with the seventh event to date in our 2021 webinar series. Our Planning Law webinar was very well attended with 130 delegates signing up and feedback resoundingly positive. The number of attendees have been co

Highland Council has dropped plans to require prior authorisation for bagpipes at funerals after an outcry from pipers. The measure was included in draft burial and crematorium management rules put out for consultation but has now been abandoned, The Times reports.

An owner of a property on the west coast of Scotland who claimed he was wrongly charged for ratings payments on the property has been unsuccessful in an appeal against the dismissal of a judicial review petition raised challenging the decision of the local authority’s ratings board. Brian Phil