SUMMER SCHOLARS 2026

Amina Shahid, Glasgow Caledonian University; Emma Gilmour, The University of Glasgow; and Elise Douglas, The University of Edinburgh.

We are delighted to announce the arrival of the first cohort for our 2026 Summer Scholars programme. An annual initiative, the WS Society has welcomed a group of talented emerging legal minds to undertake dedicated research on a critical contemporary issue within the Scottish legal system.

This year, our scholars are focusing their research on the protection of vulnerable witnesses. Their work provides a timely examination of the reforms introduced by the Victims, Witnesses and Justice Reform (Scotland) Act 2025, exploring how these legislative changes are reshaping court procedures and the support structures available to those engaging with the justice system.

We warmly invite all members and colleagues to join us for the scholars' presentation to support their hard work and engage with their research. This session on Thursday 2 July, 2.00 pm (online) is an excellent opportunity to gain insight into the practical impact of the 2025 Act.

Please contact Kirsty at kmcewing@wssociety.co.uk to register interest.

AGM 2026

Cover image: An extract from Robert Sayer, A new and exact map of Scotland or North Britain described by N. Sanson and translated into English at the expense of Robert Sayer (London: Laurie & Whittle, 1794).

At the Society’s AGM on 23 June, Deputy Keeper Jim Cormack KC WS looked back over some highlights of an eventful 2025. It was particularly pleasing to see the design of the Signet for His Majesty The King. In digital format for the first time, the Signet continues as the authenticating mark on Court of Session summonses, symbolising authority for service. The Deputy Keeper recorded the Society’s thanks to Lady Angiolini for taking the time out of her busy schedule to attend the Diet of Admission and Annual Dinner in November 2025. Treasurer Tony Jones KC WS reviewed the financial performance for the year. 

The Society’s Annual Accounts were approved – available in flipbook form here — and the election of the current trustees confirmed.  

UPCOMING CPD

Sports Law

The WS Society is delighted to share the save the date for the Sports Law conference we will be hosting at the Signet Library on the 22 October 2026. The conference will be co-chaired by Gillian Treasurer, Glasgow Commonwealth Games, and Angela McCracken, Lions Rugby. More details to follow!

Professional Negligence

The PNLA and WS Society have partnered to host a joint conference on Professional Negligence Law, designed to address the latest issues for professional negligence litigators in Scotland. The keynote address will be given by Lord Ericht WS. The conference will be jointly chaired by Ashley Jones WS of Burness Paull and Tim Edward WS of BTO. Join us on 29 October 2026 for a full day conference.

Private Client

STEP Scotland and the WS Society invite you to save the date for our annual conference on 30 September 2026 9 am - 1 pm. More details to follow!

THE GLASGOW PHILISOPHICAL SOCIETY

The Signet Library is proud to be chosen as the new repository of the publications of the Glasgow Philosophical Society. Founded in 1802 to provide Glasgow with a forum for the advancement of science and the arts, the Society can count some of the greatest minds in Scottish history amongst its membership, including the great pioneering surgeon Joseph Lister and the great scientist Lord Kelvin. The link up with the Signet Library ensures access to these important publications for researchers and scholars in perpetuity.

The Society’s publications – which include early constitutional documents – range from 1841 to 1987 and include maps, diagrams, fold-out illustrations and photographs as well as full length papers.

The Society has indexed its publications and has made them available to us for the use of researchers. For more details, see our new page on the Signet Heritage Portal:

LIGHTNING TALK SERIES

An important feature of membership of the WS Society is the opportunity to share and learn with one another. To increase the opportunities to do this, we’re introducing a Lightning Talk series of lunchtime online sessions — an ideal time to meet and engage online.

To launch the series, Kim Leslie WS will share her tips on ‘How to Build a Powerful Network’ on Wednesday 16 September, 12.30 – 13.30 pm.

Open to our members in all categories, we warmly encourage you to attend.

SIG ROUND UP

book club

The next Book Club will meet on Tuesday 14 July, 6.00 - 7.00 pm, to discuss March Violets by Philip Kerr.

Philip Kerr was born in Edinburgh and read Law at university. This novel is the first in a series of fourteen, set in Hitler’s Germany of the 1930s, featuring Bernhard Gunther, a private eye and former cop. Described as stylishly written and powerfully evocative, Kerr's crime classic transports readers to the rotten heart of Nazi Berlin, and introduces a private eye in the great tradition of Hammett and Chandler.

Register for the Zoom meeting here.

performing arts

We are delighted to announce the launch of our Performance Arts Special Interest Group, open to all WS members.

The purpose of the group is to arrange theatre/musical/arts outings generally based around Edinburgh with a social element attached.

If you are keen to know more, please confirm a mobile number to be added to the WhatsApp Group. Please email membership@wssociety.co.uk to confirm you would like to be added to the Performing Arts SIG WhatsApp group.

The hope is members will come forward with their own suggestions and plan an event.

In the meantime, if you would like to attend any of the following events, please complete this form. Please complete this at your earliest convenience, so tickets can be purchased. A social event (meal/drink etc) will be added once numbers are known.

• Friday 2 October 2026 - Shostakovich Fives -The Usher Hall-Talk at 6.45pm followed by a concert at 7.30 pm.

• Tuesday 13 October or Wednesday 14 October 2026 - The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - The Royal Lyceum Theatre at 7.30 pm

• Tuesday 26, Wednesday 27 or Thursday 28 November 2026 - A Man For All Seasons - Festival Theatre at 7.30 pm (featuring Martin Shaw as Sir Thomas More).

Please keep an eye on our dedicated Special Interest Group page for upcoming AI, Charity and Third Sector, Golf, Performance Arts and Student events.

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT — CAROLINE DOCHERTY OBE WS

Caroline pictured with Lord Mackay of Clashfern during their tenor as Deputy Keeper of the Signet and Keeper of the Signet.

In our latest Member Spotlight, we sit down with Caroline Docherty OBE WS, the first female Deputy Keeper of the Signet and former commercial property legal partner.

Caroline reflects on her inspiring journey from trainee to partner in commercial property law, highlighting the pivotal role that female mentors played in shaping her career. She recounts her unconventional path to discovering the WS Society, a connection that led to her historic appointment as the first female Deputy Keeper of the Signet wherein she oversaw a period of significant change and modernisation.

Alongside her professional achievements, Caroline also offers a glimpse into her personal interests beyond the law that continue to enrich her life.

INVITATION TO ABBOTSFORD

“The storyteller, the collector, the host. Discover the man who filled his home with imagination. ”

The WS Society invites you to Abbotsford, the extraordinary historic estate of Sir Walter Scott, on Saturday 1 August. 

The tour has been organised by the Society’s History Special Interest Group and will take in the public areas of the house, gardens and the Visitor Centre. Abbotsford is also planning to show the WS party unique manuscripts not usually on show to the public, as well as our own Signet Library manuscript of Sir Walter Scott's “The Eve of St. John”.

Spaces are limited.

Contact membership@wssociety.co.uk for further details.

MEMBERSHIP SUBSCRIPTIONS

We will shortly issue subscriptions notices for the membership year 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027. We remind you that your subscription can be paid by monthly direct debit.

For details on annual subscription rates, please visit our website.

If you have moved firms or house recently, or just changed email address, let us know. Please send updates to membership@wssociety.co.uk.

VACANCY FOR A TRUSTEE — JOHN WATSON'S TRUST

A vacancy for a Writer to the Signet as a Trustee for John Watson’s Trust will open up in the late autumn and we would like to hear from interested candidates.

The Trust awards grants for educational purposes to children and young people up to and including the age of 21 who have a physical or learning disability or who are socially disadvantaged. The vacancy exists on the Grants Committee which allocates the Trust’s grants and will involve five in-person meetings annually held at the Signet Library.

Please contact James Hamilton to express interest.

CATALOGUING THE TINCKLARIAN DOCTOR

Dr Kit Baston has just completed an important project recataloguing the Signet Library’s collection of pamphlets and publications by the Georgian Edinburgh eccentric William Mitchel. Mitchel, known as the “Tincklarian Doctor” was a remarkable autodidact and self-publisher of some of the most extraordinary tracts, sermons and ephemera ever issued by an individual.

The Signet Library holds what is almost certainly the largest collection of Mitchel material outwith national or university collections, and we believe ten of our Mitchel pamphlets are unique.

KAISER VOLENS: LORD GUTHRIE AND AN AUTHOR OF THE 1745

Currently on show in the Upper West Library is an exhibition of book cover art from the late Victorian and Edwardian golden age of popular literature. Some of the items on show, chosen by Dr. Kit Baston and Jo Hockey, include first editions of Kipling’s Just So Stories and Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince.

One item, Frederick Watson’s 1914 novel Muckle John, is special in that the Signet Library copy once belonged to the Senator of the College of Justice Lord Guthrie, and he was interested enough in the book (an adventure for boys about the 1745 Rebellion) to write to Watson with his comments and criticisms (which included a comment about the absence of women amongst the characters and worries about the use of modern language). He inserted the text of his letter into the book, alongside Watson’s reply, which read:

I am so glad that you found the story enlivening, but as it is for boys between 12 and 17 I have to leave out the heroine. It is difficult to say how the book will go at such a fearsome time, but as a Christmas present it may not fall quite flat.

Your shrapnel at my twentieth century phrases is I feel sure, deserved. I make no defence historically — my defence must lie in another channel, and here I would like your opinion. .... The modern fiction reader loathes dialect in expressions that sound fantastic today. .... I will not ask you to reply to this, but we can discuss it in the Spring (Kaiser Volens).

SIG ROUND UP

book club

The next Book Club will be on Tuesday 2 June, 6.00 - 7.00 pm. 180 years since the publication of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and in the midst of the publicity surrounding Emerald Fennell's film adaptation of the book, starring Margot Robbie, the group (which alternates classic and contemporary works) has chosen the novel as its next for discussion.

To register for the Zoom meeting, click here.

Please keep an eye on our dedicated Special Interest Group page for upcoming AI, Charity and Third Sector, Golf, Performance Arts and Student events.

UPCOMING CPD

Agricultural Law Conference

There is still time to book for our annual conference returning on Friday 5 June 2026 in the historic surroundings of the Signet Library.

The programme brings together leading legal practitioners, government specialists and policy voices to provide updates on key developments in agricultural law. The conference will be chaired by Heather Bruce, Turcan Connell, and the sit-down lunch will be hosted by this year by The Honourable Lord Duthie, Chair of The Scottish Land Court.

Professional Negligence

The PNLA and WS Society have partnered to host a joint conference on Professional Negligence Law, designed to address the latest issues for professional negligence litigators in Scotland. The keynote address will be given by Lord Ericht WS. The conference will be jointly chaired by Ashley Jones WS of Burness Paull and Tim Edward WS of BTO. Join us on 29 October 2026 for a full day conference.

Private Client

STEP Scotland and the WS Society invite you to save the date for our annual conference on 30 September 2026 9 am - 1 pm. More details to follow!

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT — CAROLINE ERENTZ

In our latest Member Spotlight, we sit down with Caroline Erentz, a Trainee Solicitor at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and a recent winner at the BWS Women in Law Awards 2026.

Caroline reflects on her journey from the Emma Ritch Law Clinic at the University of Glasgow to her current work in public service, sharing the personal motivations that drive her advocacy for victim-survivors. Beyond the courtroom, Caroline discusses how she balances the demands of a high-stakes legal career with her passion for social justice, offering a candid look at the challenges and triumphs of being a new voice in the Scottish legal profession.

AGM DATE

The next WS Annual General Meeting will take place at the Signet Library on Tuesday 23 June at 5.30 pm. All WS Members are welcome.

Meeting papers will be emailed to Members shortly.

If you plan to attend or would like to submit any questions, please contact membership@wssociety.co.uk.

MAY IN PICTURES

Spring Reception

Members and guests gathered at the Signet Library for a convivial evening of conversation and making connections. A wonderful opportunity to socialise in the beautiful surroundings. Look out for future social gatherings.

Kirking of the Scottish Parliament

On 13 May, the Signet Library played its usual part for the Kirking of the Scottish Parliament represented by Lynn McMahon WS, Robert Pirrie WS and Sophie Mills WS who greeted HRH The Duke of Edinburgh in the building after attending the service at St Giles' Cathedral.

General Assembly of the Church of Scotland 2026

Sunday service at St Giles Cathedral attended by Lady Elish LT KC WS as the King’s representative and representatives of the WS Society, Kelly Hardman WS, Stuart Lynch WS and Sophie Mills WS.

WS Art Collection Tour

Members of the Society were hosted by James Hamilton for a guided tour of the Society’s art collection.

Shelley Matheson WS of Archibald Sharp LLP, Glasgow reported on the tour:

“A lovely way to spend Sunday being shown round the WS Art Collection at the Signet Library, followed by lunch at The Colonnades.

Art, architecture and Scottish legal history in one very beautiful setting.

James Hamilton, Researcher Principal at the Signet Library, led us through a fascinating exploration of the collection, including portraits in oils, busts and prints by artists including Allan Ramsay, Sir Henry Raeburn, Sir George Reid, Sir John de Medina and David Scougall.

What I loved most was that the collection is not just about the history of the WS Society. It also reflects the evolution of Scottish art, bringing together early commissioned works, gifts and bequests, and a significant collection of prints and engravings.

There were some brilliant details throughout, with every picture telling a story, including some striking legal-historical material among the prints and documents, and, best of all, Sir Walter Scott’s chaise longue.

My favourite painting of the morning was George Watson’s portrait of Sibella Boswell with her granddaughter — a beautiful and unusually tender piece among the more formal legal and civic portraits.

A real hidden treasure in plain sight, and a reminder of how much history sits quietly behind Scotland’s legal institutions.”

RECORD ADMISSIONS TO SOCIETY

The WS Society welcomed 55 new members across all categories at its May Diet of Admission, including 17 new Writers to the Signet. Keeper of the Signet Lady Elish Angiolini presided and mingled with new members and their guests in the Signet Library. Surprise guest Professor Charlie Rose from the USA gave a mock opening statement to the jury as an insight into US trial advocacy.

At the ceremony, Society Treasurer Tony Jones KC WS said the WS Society stood for honour, integrity and loyalty to the rule of law. Chief Executive Robert Pirrie WS added: ‘Professional and person interaction outside of office life is so important for lawyers. It broadens the mind and fosters the human touch’.

Read more from our new members below.

SIGNET MAGAZINE - ANGIOLINI INQUIRY

At the end of 2025, our Keeper Lady Elish Angiolini released the First Report of Part 2 of the Angiolini Inquiry on “Prevention of sexually motivated crimes against women in public”. Calling for a fundamental shift in the focus of activity to prevent such crimes, the report recommends an emphasis on early intervention in targeting and identifying predatory men.

ROBERT PIRRIE WS explores the vital work the landmark Angiolini Inquiry. Five years on from the tragedy that sparked the investigation, Lady Elish remains a vocal advocate for systemic reform in police vetting and culture. Her latest findings serve as a stark reminder that ensuring women’s safety requires a coordinated, 'whole-society' approach and a 'laser focus' on perpetrator behaviour. As a trailblazer in the Scottish legal world, Lady Elish’s work continues to define the profession’s commitment to justice and public safety.

This article was originally published in Signet magazine issue 18 (March 2026).

MEMBERSHIP

If you have moved firms or house recently, or just changed email address, let us know. We don’t want to lose touch!

Email membership@wssociety.co.uk.