News

A new process to investigate prison deaths has been welcomed "in principle" by Justice Secretary Keith Brown. In November 2019, then Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf asked Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland (HMCIPS) to review the response to deaths in pr

Derek Auchie, professor in dispute process law the University of Aberdeen, is the newest mediator to join Squaring Circles, a specialist mediation, negotiation and online dispute resolution business, and winner of the National Mediation Awards Newcomer of the Year Award 2020. With a career spanning

Morton Fraser has appointed three partners across its real estate, corporate and private client teams. Two have come from other firms, with Chris McLeish joining Morton Fraser’s real estate team from DWF and Andrew Walker joining the corporate team from Addleshaw Goddard. Marking ongoing inves

Stronachs LLP has appointed Stuart Murphy as its first chief operating officer (COO). Mr Murphy will be responsible for leading operational and financial management at the firm and will oversee Stronachs’ HR and IT teams across its Aberdeen and Inverness offices.

The Scottish Solicitors Bar Association has organised a protest outside the Scottish Parliament on the St Andrew’s Day public holiday on 6 December. The occasion will mark a year since the Edinburgh and Glasgow Bar Associations took joint action and will coincide with a boycott of the holiday

A book in memory of the late Lord Kerr is being published this week.

Thorntons has been re-appointed to the Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges (APUC) framework agreement for legal services. The single lot framework covers five key areas of expertise – including commercial business, property & estates, HR, charity and international matters &n

Macdonald Henderson has advised the shareholders of specialist polymer supply business Hardie Polymers on an MBO of the company, led by Izy Ferguson and Bartosz Komanski, and backed by the team at Nevis Capital. Former owner, Fergus Hardie, remains as a shareholder and director but will take a step

A 53-year-old gamekeeper has been fined for killing an owl and a goshawk. Peter Givens, a gamekeeper from Stow in Galashiels, was fined £300 after pleading guilty to a charge under Section 1(1)(a) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 at Selkirk Sheriff Court yesterday.

More than £11 million has been awarded to two drugs projects to enable them to expand their residential rehabilitation service as part of a commitment to increase the number of beds in Scotland by 50 per cent to 650 by 2026. River Garden Auchincruive in South Ayrshire will use the funding over

Censors in Hong Kong have removed an episode of The Simpsons from a streaming service as it refers to the Tiananmen Square Massacre and mocks Mao Zedong. Disney+ launched in Hong Kong earlier this month, but viewers noticed the absence of episode 12 of season 16: Goo Goo Gai Pan.

An appeal by the sisters of a Glasgow man with potentially terminal kidney disease seeking an order requiring him to comply with directions about future lifelong medical treatment has been allowed by the Sheriff Appeal Court. The appellants, RM and SB, were the appointed joint guardians of PKM, a 47

A body independent of the Scottish government and prison service should investigate every prison death, a new report published today has recommended. The report of the Independent Review of the Response to Deaths in Prison Custody follows two years of research, analysis and engagement with families

In her recent article in The Scotsman, Queen Noor of Jordan urged the G20 nations to acknowledge that there is a diplomatic emergency. As she and other members of the Scotia Group have argued in recent months, states must commit themselves to more ambitious targets, increase financial and practical

The police recorded 65,251 incidents of domestic abuse in 2020-21, an increase of four per cent compared to the previous year. This is the fifth year in a row this figure has shown an increase.