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Formation | 1532 |
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Headquarters | Parliament House |
Location | |
Membership | 730 |
Dean | Roddy Dunlop, KC |
Vice-Dean | Ronnie Renucci, KC |
Parent organization | College of Justice |
Website | www |
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Scots law |
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The Faculty of Advocates is an independent body of lawyers who have been admitted to practise as advocates before the courts of Scotland, especially the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary. The Faculty of Advocates is a constituent part of the College of Justice and is based in Edinburgh.
Advocates are privileged to plead in any cause before any of the courts of Scotland, including the sheriff courts and district courts, where counsel are not excluded by statute. [1]
The Faculty has existed since 1532 when the College of Justice was set up by Act of the Parliament of Scotland, but its origins are believed to predate that event. No curriculum of study, residence or professional training was, until 1856, required on entering this profession, but the faculty always had the power of rejecting any candidate for admission. Subsequently candidates underwent two private examinations; one in general scholarship that could be substituted by evidence of an equivalent university degree, and the other, at the interval of a year, in Roman, private international and Scots law, along with evidence of having attended approved classes. [1] For a long period the Faculty resisted reorganisation, until changes in admissions were introduced in 1960. [2]
The first woman to be admitted to the faculty was Margaret Kidd in July 1923, who remained Scotland's only female advocate until 1948. [3] Kidd served as Keeper of the Advocates' Library 1956–1969. In 2004 the first female vice-dean of the faculty was elected. [4]
The Faculty is led by the Dean of Faculty, who is elected by the whole membership. The post is currently held by Roddy Dunlop KC, [5] who succeeded Gordon Jackson in July 2020. He is supported by the Vice-Dean, Treasurer, Clerk, Keeper of the Library and Chairman of Faculty Services Ltd, all of whom are also elected. The Dean regularly consults with Faculty Council, which is made up of elected and ex officio members.
The Faculty is self-regulating, but subject to the overriding supervision of the Lord President of the Court of Session, who delegates to it the task of preparing Intrants for admission as advocates. This task involves a process of examination and practical instruction known as devilling, during which intrants benefit from intensive structured training in the special skills of advocacy. No-one can be presented to the court as suitable to be a practising advocate without satisfying these training requirements. The Faculty also provides for its members an ongoing programme of talks, seminars and conferences covering a wide range of topics.
Many Advocates and trainee advocates carry out work for the Free Legal Services Unit (FLSU). This is part of the Faculty's long standing commitment to providing access to justice for everyone in society. The FLSU enables qualified persons to provide advice and representation to clients of accredited advice agencies (including CAS) across Scotland. (In order to devil a person has to first undergo a period of training in a solicitor's office.)
The Faculty includes practising and non-practising members. The current practising Bar includes an increasing proportion of women. Women make up approximately one quarter practising membership. Total numbers now stand at just over 460, of whom approximately one fifth are King's Counsel. The taking of Silk, as assumption of the title of King's Counsel is commonly known, depends upon the prerogative of His Majesty. This is exercised through the First Minister of Scotland upon the recommendation of the Lord Justice General. The Dean of Faculty is consulted in the course of this process. As a general rule, silk is awarded to experienced Counsel, who are considered to have achieved distinction in full-time practice. The process of awarding silk has been the subject of some criticism.
For more than 300 years, the Faculty has maintained within Parliament House the Advocates Library, often regarded as the finest working law library in the United Kingdom.
A comprehensive range of materials has been built up over the last three hundred years, and a modern library management system utilising the latest technology, ensure that the Advocates Library is able to meet the increasingly complex needs of members of the Faculty of Advocates. In addition, the library's stock is made available to others via the National Library of Scotland.
The Library was formally inaugurated in 1689. From the start the collection was a general one. In 1709 the status of the collection was confirmed when Queen Anne's Copyright Act gave the Keeper of the Library the right to claim a copy of every book published in the British Isles. The collection was enhanced by purchase and donation, particularly of continental imprints and of manuscripts.
The Advocates Library came to be recognised as the natural depository for literary materials of national importance. By the 1850s the Library had become in effect Scotland's national library. In 1925 the National Library of Scotland was established when the Faculty gifted to the nation its whole non-law collections comprising 750,000 books, pamphlets, manuscripts (notably those of Walter Scott), [6] maps and sheet music. The Advocates Library has retained the copyright privilege for law publications.
In recent years the Advocates Library has expanded to take account of the increase in membership of the Faculty. Advances in technology have been embraced with the installation of a new library management system, incorporating an on-line catalogue, which further enhances the services the library offers.
The Dean of Faculty is the leader of the Faculty of Advocates. The Dean elected by the whole membership.
Since 2000, the following have served as Dean:
A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include taking cases in superior courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, researching the philosophy, hypothesis and history of law, and giving expert legal opinions.
An advocate is a professional in the field of law. Different countries' legal systems use the term with somewhat differing meanings. The broad equivalent in many English law–based jurisdictions could be a barrister or a solicitor. However, in Scottish, Manx Law, South African, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Scandinavian, Polish, Israeli, South Asian and South American jurisdictions, "Advocate" indicates a lawyer of superior classification.
In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer who is typically a senior trial lawyer. Technically, they are appointed by the monarch of the country to be one of 'His [Her] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law'. The position originated in England. Some Commonwealth countries have either abolished the position, or renamed it so as to remove monarchical connotations, for example, 'Senior counsel' or 'Senior Advocate'.
The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to the bar". "The bar" is now used as a collective noun for barristers, but literally referred to the wooden barrier in old courtrooms, which separated the often crowded public area at the rear from the space near the judges reserved for those having business with the court. Barristers would sit or stand immediately behind it, facing the judge, and could use it as a table for their briefs.
The title of Senior Counsel or State Counsel is given to a senior lawyer in some countries that were formerly part of the British Empire. "Senior Counsel" is used in current or former Commonwealth countries or jurisdictions that have chosen to change the title "King's Counsel" to a name without monarchical connotations, usually related to the British monarch that is no longer head of state, such that reference to the King is no longer appropriate. Examples of jurisdictions which have made the change because of the latter reason include Mauritius, Zambia, India, Hong Kong, Ireland, South Africa, Kenya, Malawi, Singapore, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. Jurisdictions which have retained the monarch as head of state, but have nonetheless opted for the new title include some states and territories of Australia, as well as Belize.
William Gordon Jackson KC is a senior Scottish lawyer who served as Dean of the Faculty of Advocates from 2016 until 2020. From 1999 to 2007 he was a Scottish Labour Party Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Glasgow Govan.
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Dame Margaret Henderson Kidd, Mrs MacDonald was a Scottish legal advocate, editor and politician. She was the first woman to become a member of the Faculty of Advocates, the first woman advocate to appear before the House of Lords and before a parliamentary select committee and in 1948, the first British woman King's counsel.
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