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Areas of expertise

Professional information

  • 2025-Present: Member of Council, The Stair Society
  • 2024: Admitted to the Faculty of Advocates
  • 2023-Present: Tutor in Public Law and Commercial Litigation, University of Edinburgh
  • 2023-2024: Devil and Lord Reid Scholar. Devilmasters: David Welsh, Usman Tariq KC (Intellectual Property) and Wendy Culross (Criminal)
  • 2021-2023: MacRoberts LLP
  • 2020-Present: PhD Student in Public Law, University of Glasgow, Clark Foundation Scholar
  • 2015-2019: University of Strathclyde, LLB (Hons); 2019-2020
Professional experience

Jamie specialises in Public Law, Commercial Disputes and Tax. Jamie called to the bar as Lord Reid Scholar in June 2024.

Jamie is an experienced public lawyer. He has assisted with judicial review proceedings involving human rights law, environmental law and administrative law. He has advised a number of major public authorities in respect of complex equality law disputes. He has presented at a number of international conferences on Public Law and Human Rights. He is well-equipped to assist clients with petitions for judicial review or procurement cases.

Jamie deals with a variety of commercial disputes. Since calling to the Bar, Jamie has assisted with a number of multi-million pound commercial disputes involving complex questions of law and fact. Jamie has been instructed to advise in high-value disputes in the whisky sector and in the wholesale sector.

Jamie also accepts instructions in relation to Tax matters and is able to appear across the UK in cases before the Tax Chambers of the UK and Scottish First-Tier Tribunals, and in the Upper Tribunal.

Jamie is also an academic. He is a PhD Candidate at the University of Glasgow, where he is writing a thesis on Constitutional Law and the Philosophy of St Thomas Aquinas. In his practice and his academic research, Jamie also takes a particular interest in Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) litigation. He teaches on the Commercial Litigation and Public Law courses at the University of Edinburgh.

Notable cases

Public Law

AN -v- Renfrewshire Council & Or [2025] CSOH 89: successfully appeared for the defender, challenging the competency of a bare declarator of fact where the pursuer sought a declarator as to her age for the purposes of section 25(3) of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995.

LP North Sixteen t/a Dears Pharmacy -v- TBP Partnership LLP & Lothian Health Board [2025] CSOH 91: appeared for the petitioner (with Ruth Crawford KC as senior) in the judicial review of a decision of the National Appeal Panel to uphold a decision of a Pharmaceutical Practice Committee.

Reclaiming Motion by A against the Principal Reporter and others [2025] CSIH 9 (led by Gerry Moynihan KC): instructed by the Scottish Children’s Reporter’s Administration in judicial review of a decision of a Children’s Hearing relevant to the operation of section 6(1) of the Human Rights Act 1998.

Fatal Accident Inquiry into the death of Jack McKenzie [2025] FAI 24: instructed by the next of kin in a Fatal Accident Inquiry into a prisoner’s death at HMYOI Polmont.

Commercial Law

Watermans Property Sales Ltd -v- Webster (Dunfermline Sheriff Court, 2025, unreported): appeared for the defender successfully seeking dismissal of a case about a restrictive covenant.

Trusts & Executries

O’Brien’s Executors -v- O’Brien (Glasgow Sheriff Court, 2025, unreported): appeared successfully for the defender in a case where the pursuers alleged forgery, undue influence, fraud and breach of trust.

Directories

Select publications
  • ‘The Nobile Officium and Public Law: An Undertapped Resource?’, 12 March 2024, UKCLA Blog.
  • ‘Public Health, Proportionality, and the ‘Freedom of Halie Kirk’: On Philip & Others v Scottish Ministers’, 2022 Public Law 4.
  • ‘The Case for Conscience: On the Common Good and Conscientious Refusals in Medicine’, Volume 19, Dec 2019, Philosophical News.
  • ‘Veil Piercing in the UK: An Evolution of Doctrinal Approaches’, 2019 2 De Lege Ferenda 1.

Notable Conference Addresses

  • “Equity and Judicial Review”, Roman Law in the 21st Century Conference 2023, National University of Public Service, Budapest, Hungary
  • “The Classical Legal Tradition and Political Constitutionalism”, ICON·S Annual World Public Law Conference 2021, Wroclaw, Poland