A contender (until the recent announcement of Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers) to be next senior law lord, Lord Hope of Craighead, 69, is nonetheless one of the key influences within the highest court. His career was at the Scottish Bar, where he practised for 24 years. He had attended Edinburgh Academy and later Rugby School and St John’s College, Cambridge. His rise took him through a series of top posts within the Scottish legal profession: Dean of the Faculty of Advocates from 1986 to 1989, then a Senator of the College of Justice and Lord President of the Court of Session and Lord Justice General of Scotland in 1989. In 1992 he broke new ground by permitting an experiment in televising trials in Scottish courts for documentary purposes, but it did not lead to regular broadcasts. He became a law lord in 1996, one of two Scottish law lords, and is taking an influential role in arrangements for the new supreme court.

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