There is no justice in SNP plans to close 26 courts – a decision that will a have a serious knock-on effect 
on the viability of our towns, writes Iain Gray

There’s a broad appeal to the Law Society of Scotland’s Bruce Beveridge, finds John Forsyth

When the Faculty of Advocates agreed to take on the task of cataloguing the 9,000-book library of its most celebrated member, Sir Walter Scott, the actual work fell to Lindsay Levy.

Our monthly column from Law Society of Scotland director Neil Stevenson explains the stories behind some of his tweets

Electronic monitoring (“tagging”) has been available for offenders in Scotland since 2002, but it could – and should – be used far more creatively and effectively than it has been.

THIS month is the seventh anniversary of the Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006 which, it has been said, abolished the old Scots form of common law marriage.

THE regulatory burden on Scottish employers is increasing its stranglehold.

SINCE the revived Scottish Parliament came into existence in 1999, it seems as though we have had nothing but a constant upheaval in the laws of the land.

IT IS not exactly hiring by the hour, but Pinsent Masons is about to launch its Vario scheme in Scotland, in which it will act as an agency bringing together self-employed lawyers with companies or agencies with a specific project to complete or hole to fill.

LORD Brailsford told an audience of family lawyers last week: “In a recent Hague Convention child abduction case, one of the parties, a party litigant, was in Melbourne, Australia.

THE value of bringing eight sectoral continuing professional development conferences under the same Murrayfield roof last week was the chance to observe how similar the pressures – and the search for solutions – are in every specialist area.

If two individuals can share a single look of polite tolerance it was evident in one of the Atholl Crescent conference rooms of Brodies last week.

The Dean of the Faculty of Advocates claimed on these pages that it is not obvious who would benefit from the change to the “privative limit” proposed in the Scottish Government’s draft Courts Reform Bill (March 4).

Whichever side of the argument you are on, it is surely welcome in the independence debate that attention is beginning to focus sharply on what may happen after any yes vote in next year’s referendum.

A part of Faculty of Advocates history disappeared over the weekend with the rows of advocates’ boxes in Parliament House being emptied, locked and designated henceforth as decorative rather than functional.

THE Law Society of Scotland is looking for an enthusiastic non-solicitor to join its Regulatory Committee.

SIGHS, sobs and the sound of furious scribbling may be emanating from the Faculty of Advocates as you read this. The silk round is under way.

ANY “national convention”’ sounds impressive. The first ever “Scots law national convention” appears even grander. Five hundred or so lawyers are expected to attend Scots Law 2013, over and 9 May at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh.

RECENT cases involving allegations of child sexual abuse have turned the legal interpretation of “vicarious liability” into one of the more quickly evolving areas of the law.

LAST week the Supreme Court reminded the Scottish Parliament of the limits of its powers to legislate.