News

Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, who retired from the Supreme Court bench just two months ago, has passed away at the age of 72. Tributes have been paid this morning to the former Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland, who was appointed as one of the inaugural members of the UKSC on its creation in 20

An English solicitor who was fined for misconduct after engaging in sexual activity with a junior in his legal firm has succeeded in reversing the decision after appealing under the Solicitors Act 1974. The misconduct action was originally brought by the Solicitors Regulation Authority&nbs

A Crown Office employee who stole hundreds of thousands of pounds in drugs and cash from an evidence store has been jailed. Katherine Vaughan, 34, of Aberdeen, was employed as a production keeper for the Crown Office. She embezzled more than £90,000 in cash and stole £147,000 of drugs, i

Denise Laverty has been promoted to partner in the family law team at Gilson Gray. Ms Laverty, who joined Gilson Gray as a legal director in June 2019, has over 29 years’ experience in all aspects of family law with particular experience in cross UK border jurisdictional issues. She has a spec

Solicitor Anne McSherry has been appointed as Cairn Energy's first new company secretary in 22 years. Duncan Wood retired from the role after having served in it since the 1990s.

Digby Brown Solicitors last night won the prestigious Catastrophic Injury Team of the Year award. The firm was shortlisted alongside seven other firms at the 2020 Personal Injury Awards – an annual event that recognises the efforts and success of the UK’s top law firms.

The UK's only gender identity clinic for under-18s has lost a high-profile High Court battle over whether under-16s can consent to treatment with puberty blockers. The NHS Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) based at Tavistock NHS Trust has, since 2011, prescribed puberty blockers (PBs) to so

A youth programme unique to Scotland has helped transform the lives of 106,000 young people in the past three years. The CashBack for Communities scheme reinvests seized criminal assets into community projects which support young people into positive destinations, diverting some away from potentiall

The First 100 Years project fundraised in excess of £500,000 over five years, according to the charity. The five-year project to mark the 100-year anniversary of women being able to qualify as lawyers was inspired by the photograph of one female lawyer amongst men.

The Faculty of Advocates’ Christmas collection is needed more than ever this year to make a difference for vulnerable families left reeling by Covid-19. Donations will be received all next week (7-12 December) and then delivered to the family support charity, Home-Start Glenrothes.

Benjamin Bestgen takes a look this week at robotic weapons and the law. See last week's primer here. Killer robots, or “Lethal Autonomous Weapons” (LAWs), have been in our popular conscience for decades. Science fiction fans are familiar with Isaac Asimov’s Laws of Robotics and mos

An investigation has been launched after a two-metre-tall sculpture of an erect penis disappeared from a mountainside as mysteriously as it appeared. The sculpture baffled locals when it first appeared on the Grünten mountain in the south of Bavaria, Germany some years ago but later became a po

The Upper Tribunal for Scotland has allowed an appeal by the former co-tenant of a flat in Edinburgh after it was ordered to reconsider her case by the Court of Session. Kate Affleck, the appellant, was one of four tenants of a flat owned by the respondents, Chris and Sarah Bronsdon.

So, today it’s the beleaguered staff at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service balloting on strike action. Yesterday, it was the hard-pressed members of the Edinburgh and Glasgow bar associations taking action. Both of these actions, to which Scottish Legal News is entirely sympathetic

The claim that juries subscribe to rape myths and are biased against complainants has no basis in empirical fact, a new study has found. The work, undertaken by academics at University College London, is also informed by research that casts serious doubt on the value of mock juries as a proxy for re