Introducing Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

These groups will provide a platform for those with a shared interest in a specific area, topic or issue.  The WS Society SIGs will be led by members and will benefit from the active contribution of our members.

Please take a moment to share your thoughts on this new offering, click here. Once we have collated member feedback, we will be in touch with further information.

In the meantime, if you have any queries please contact Sarah Leask, Director, Engagement and Membership sleask@wssociety.co.uk

TREFOIL CELEBRATION

Client Trefoil House surpasses £1,000,000 in grants. 

We are thrilled that since the WS Governance and Charities team took over the administration of Trefoil House (Scottish charity number SC013744) in 2016, the charity has surpassed £1,000,000 in grants! Trefoil’s mission is to support the development of children and young people with additional needs in Scotland, to enable them to maximise their capabilities and achieve as much independence as possible.

Read more about Trefoil’s impact here: https://www.trefoil.org.uk/our-impact.

For more information on Trefoil, please visit www.trefoil.org.uk or contact Sophie Mills, smills@wssociety.co.uk.  

ANNUAL DINNER 2024

Bookings now open.

Booking is now open for the highlight of the legal year, the Society’s Annual Dinner on Friday 8 November in the splendour of the Signet Library. The ticket price is £ 130 (plus VAT), £1,300 (plus VAT) for a table of 10. You can book here or email Sarah Leask on sleask@wssociety.co.uk

If you have already requested tickets or tables, we have your booking and no further action is required.

The guest speaker for the dinner will be announced soon.

DIET OF ADMISSION

Join us in welcoming 23 new members.

We are looking forward to our July Diet of Admission where we will welcome 23 new members of different categories, and their families and friends.

Lady Eilish will preside over the ceremony and provide inspiring remarks on our member’s place is history. This is a wonderful opportunity to meet Lady Eilish and new members of the Society. We welcome all members who wish to attend.  

The Diet of Admission will take place on Wednesday 3 July at the Signet Library. The evening starts at 5.30 pm with the swearing in ceremony followed by a drinks reception.

We are still welcoming new applications for the Diet and if you know anyone who would be interested in becoming a member, please contact our membership team at membership@wssociety.co.uk with any enquiry. We will host a second Diet of Admission in November (date TBC).

LIBRARY SERVICES

Work and meeting space available to members.

Writers to the Signet and members of WS firms are warmly invited to visit and work in the modern accommodation of the Upper West Library, a pleasant atmosphere for working which offers natural light, flexible desk space with access to Westlaw, wifi, coffee and meeting facilities.

Most of our services can be accessed from the convenience of your own desk or office. We will deliver case reports, legislation and extracts from legal authorities directly to your desktop via email, and send books and other materials via DX or post. Most requests can be fulfilled on the same day. Our PSL research and consultancy service, providing precedents, briefing notes and reports, can also be accessed remotely – just telephone 0131 220 3249 or email library@wssociety.co.uk to discuss your requirements.

With the long history of Writers to the Signet contributing to the rich tradition of historical writing in Edinburgh and Scotland we would also mention that the Library subscribes to a wide range of historical journals and publications including many of Scotland’s historical and archaeological societies and those issued by the Scottish Record Society, the Scottish Historical Society, the Stair Society and the Society of Antiquaries. The Society’s own rich archives and collections of books, manuscripts and papers are all available for members to draw on for their own work.

VISIT OF EUROPEAN LAW STUDENTS ASSOCIATION [AUSTRIA]

Display of Justinian’s Novellae.

We were privileged to welcome a visiting group from the European Law Students Association in Austria for a tour of the Library and a discussion on the modern legal scene in Europe. To mark the occasion some of the Signet Library’s extensive collections of European law were on display. These included the 1540 first printing of the Hexabiblon, which formed the basis of the Greek legal code after 1828, the Scottish Enlightenment scholar Thomas Ruddiman’s own copy of Justinian’s Novellae (the Geneva edition of 1558 edited by the Scottish intellectual Henry Scrimgeour) and a 1523 commentary on Justinian’s Institutes by one of the last of the great pre-Reformation legal scholars Giasone del Maino.

REMEMBERING PROFESSOR ARTHUR BURNS

Celebration of life.

This month, on 28 May, the Society’s Chief Executive Dr Robert Pirrie WS attended a Symposium and Choral Evensong at King’s College London to remember Arthur Burns, Professor of Modern History at KCL and Academic Director of the Georgian Papers Programme. Professor Burns was a speaker at one of the Society’s 2022 events to mark 200 years of the Signet Library. He was a supervisor for Robert Pirrie’s PhD at KCL.

At the Symposium, senior academics and writers in history from around the UK and US gathered to share memories of Professor Burns and his work. His wife, Sarah Stockwell, Professor of Imperial and Commonwealth History at KCL, and three sons were among those attending. Professor Burns was universally admired and respected, not only for the rigour of his historical scholarship, but for his qualities of kindness, goodness, and generosity of spirit. He was on the academic staff at KCL for 30 years, having studied and obtained his PhD at Balliol College, Oxford. Professor Burns made an immense contribution at KCL and to the many other historical societies of which he was a member and in some cases a co-founder. He co-founded the Boydell and Brewer series Studies in Modern British Religious History, which has now published more than 35 volumes on this theme. He was a pioneer of digital humanities, a field in which KCL is now a global leader. Professor Burns will be forever in the memory of those who knew him as one of the very best.  

SWEARING IN OF FIRST MINISTER

Historic ceremony.

On Wednesday 8 May, 2024, Scotland’s new First Minister John Swinney was sworn into office by the Lord President in the Court of Session. The WS Society as part of Scotland’s College of Justice (founded in 1532) was represented in court by CEO Robert Pirrie WS, Principal Solicitor Sophie Mills and Chris Nicholson WS (Legal Directorate, Scottish Government).