He is a graduate of the universities of Dundee, Oxford (St. Catherine's College) and Edinburgh.
He lectured in the Department of Scots Law, at the University of Edinburgh, and then trained for the Scottish bar.
At the senior bar he appeared in a number of appeals to the UK Supreme Court including Royal Bank of Scotland v Wilson and Cadder v HMA.
He was appointed a Senator of the College of Justice by Her Majesty the Queen on the advice of the First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon and installed in April 2017.
[1] He was appointed to be the Scottish judge in the Employment Appeal Tribunal on 1 January 2019.