News In Focus
8 March 2010
Former Deputy First Minister resumes legal career
Former Deputy First Minister Jim Wallace QC is to resume practice as an advocate, more than 30 years after he first became a member of the Scottish bar.
Now known as Lord Wallace of Tankerness, he will join his former political colleague Sir Menzies Campbell QC as a member of Terra Firm Chambers. He will formally return to the bar on March 15.
Lord Wallace said: “I am looking forward very much to returning to practice and engaging once again in legal work. I hope I can bring with me the experience I have gained as a MP, MSP and minister both in making law and dealing with its practical consequences.”
Lord Wallace was called to the bar in July 1979 and practised mostly in civil cases before putting his legal career on hold after being returned as the Liberal MP for Orkney and Shetland in the 1983 election.
He served as MP for 18 years and occupied a number of front bench posts for the Liberals (and later the Liberal Democrats) including employment spokesman and chief whip.
In 1992 he was elected unopposed as leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, and he became MSP for Orkney in the 1999 Scottish parliamentary elections, standing down as an MP in the 2001 general election.
He was appointed Deputy First Minister and Minister for Justice, and later became Minister for Enterprise and Lifelong Learning before announcing in 2005 his decision to stand down as party leader and Deputy First Minister.
Lord Wallace stood down as an MSP on the dissolution of the Scottish Parliament in 2007 and in October that year was appointed to the House of Lords.