Those that have been practising and observing the law for far longer than I have, confirm that we have never experienced a period quite like it.

The legal profession in Scotland was always considered to be somewhat fusty, traditional, conservative and set in its ways; a place where the last bastions of male traditionalism held sway, and the spirit of calvinism ruled.

Whether that was ever true or not has been swept into irrelevance with a series of practical and structural changes that have left the legal landscape unrecognisable, and we aren’t even finished yet.

The old Sasine register has gone, together with the feudal system that spawned it. Ancient rights of audience are up for review, the structure of the courts is scheduled to be reshaped, the constitutional nature of Scotland is likely to be revised, and even the professional nature of those entering the law and able to practice is about to change, with the onset of ABS.

What we are witnessing is a scaled down variation of what Naomi Klein called the Shock Doctrine, which posits that a person’s entire personality, character and value system could be wiped and rebuilt if suitably shocked. The term arose from electro-convulsive therapy, and has been nefariously applied on a national scale by dictator governments to take advantage of a traumatised population by imposing sweeping structural, economic and societal changes on them. Some say it has been happening in Haiti since their own recent countrywide trauma.

History shows that the shocked population gratefully clings on to any certainties that can be provided by whatever new structure is imposed, and accepts the changed reality provided to them, without question.

I can’t believe that Scotland’s lawyers could let this happen to them.


Steven Raeburn
February 2010