Scottish Lawyers and Independence

While the country is still deciding on which way to vote, Scotland's legal profession has been thinking ahead to what a ‘Yes’ vote could mean for them. The Law Society of Scotland has insisted that untangling Scotland from over 300 years of being part of the United Kingdom wouldn’t be an issue.

Lorna Jack, chief executive of the Law Society, believes that Scottish legal expertise is such that there wouldn’t be a problem, and that Scottish proficiency in UK, international and constitutional law would stand Scottish lawyers in good stead when it came to tackling some of the issues that might arise from creating an independent Scottish state.

One legal firm – a firm that states it is neutral on the issue of independence - was quick to provide an analogy for the legal process that would follow a Yes vote, saying that it would be a very similar situation to those in the past where state owned industries like British Rail have been privatised. In effect, all that would happen is that something that was part of the UK state would be ‘externalised’ and all the interdependencies that were affected would have to be rearranged.

Recently, a group of pro-independence group of law practitioners and legal academics was established, called Lawyers for Yes. The group of over 100 academics and lawyers includes Fiona Cook and Jamie Kerr, both Scottish Labour Party members, Edinburgh University constitutional expert Professor Christine Bell;  Zenon Bankowski, professor emeritus of legal theory at Edinburgh University; and Aileen McHarg, professor of Public Law at Strathclyde University.

Other Scottish lawyers are resolutely against the Yes vote, such as Mike Dailly, a prominent lawyer who has recently been in the news after sending an abusive tweet to First Minister Alex Salmond.

Dailly, who is principal solicitor at Govan Law Centre and also sits on the board of the Scottish Housing Regulator, was forced to apologise after tweeting his opinions directly to Alex Salmond, as the tweet was picked up by the media and criticised.

He has now apologised "unreservedly" to the first minister, who has accepted his apology.

Here at Sturrock Armstrong and Thomson, along with everyone else in Scotland, we can only wait and see what September 18 will bring. As the latest polls show that the gap between a 'Yes' and a 'No' vote is rapidly closing, it’s anybody’s guess whether Scotland will still be part of the UK for years to come.