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Sarah Lilley reflects on her crash course in online lawyering precipitated by the first lockdown last March. In early March 2020 I walked out of Inverness Sheriff Court to make my way back to the office following a morning of court hearings. Inverness Castle, in which the sheriff court was housed fo

Hate crimes recorded against the police have risen over the past three years and comprise up to half of such charges in some areas, the Law Society Gazette reports. Fifty-three per cent of all cases dealt with by North Yorkshire Police in 2019/20 included a victim who was a police employee or office

Spain is set to legalise assisted dying, becoming the fifth country in Europe and the sixth in the world to allow terminally ill people to end their life. Legislation providing for the regulation of assisted dying was approved by Spanish MPs this month with 202 in favour, 141 against and two abstent

In the last financial year, the First-tier Tribunal for Scotland Housing and Property Chamber closed 30 per cent more applications than the previous year. During the financial year 1 April 2019 to 31 March 2020, the chamber received 4,112 applications across all jurisdictions, a nine per cent increa

Macdonald Henderson has joined the International Commercial Law Alliance (ICLA), becoming its sole Scottish member. ICLA is a strategic group of law firms from around the world. Each member firm provides clients with legal and business advice in the jurisdiction in which the law firm is located.

Shoosmiths has been awarded Investors In People Platinum accreditation. This accolade puts Shoosmiths in the top two per cent of the tens of thousands of companies assessed throughout Investors in People’s history.

A court has reprimanded lawyers for using the typeface Garamond to fit more words into page-limited filings. Lawyers in Washington, D.C. were technically within the rules in using Garamond, which is slightly smaller than similar typefaces such as Times New Roman.

A judicial review petition by 27 religious leaders in Scotland challenging the legitimacy of the Scottish Ministers’ decision to close places of worship in January 2021 has succeeded in the Outer House of the Court of Session.  Revered Dr William Philip, as well as 26 other petitioners fr

Scottish lawyer and peer Baroness Helena Kennedy QC is among nine UK citizens who have been sanctioned by China in a row over alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang. The nine include Tory MPs Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Nusrat Ghani, Tim Loughton, Tom Tugendhat and Neil O'Brien, Lord Alton, lawyer Sir G

A former diplomat's tweet and blog posts about Alex Salmond's arrest and prosecution constitute contempt of court, the High Court has ruled. Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, has written extensively in defence of Mr Salmond, who was acquitted of various sexual offence charges

Harper Macleod has been named as one of Scotland's five 'Ones to Watch' at the inaugural Flexibility Works Employer Awards. The firm was the only legal services business to be recognised at the event, which celebrated Scotland's top flexible employers.

Baktosch Gillan interviews the current Lord Lyon, Dr Joe Morrow, about the role of his ancient office in 21st century Scotland. After a career at the forefront of the development of mental health law and practice in Scotland, Dr Joseph Morrow CBE, QC, LLD, is now on a mission to preserve Scotland&rs

Stuart Munro, head of criminal litigation at Livingstone Brown, considers an important technical issue that has featured in a number of recent high-profile cases. What right does a party to litigation have to use information or documents recovered in that process for other purposes? That seemingly a

Rodney Whyte, partner and residential property specialist at Pinsent Masons, compares Scotland to its southern neighbour when it comes to Later Living communities. Scotland has been relegated to the “poor relation” in terms of institutional investment in the Later Living sector, while mu

Thousands of Asda shop floor workers, represented by law firm Leigh Day, have won a significant victory at the UK Supreme Court in their fight for equal pay. The Supreme Court unanimously held in a 26-page judgment that the claimants, who work in the retail business, can use the terms of conditions