They are now published by the Scottish Council of Law Reporting (SCLR), a charity established by the legal profession, with the prime purpose of publishing what are the nearest thing to 'official' law reports that exist in Scotland, as evidenced by Practice Notes from both the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary directing that Session Cases law reports must be cited in preference to any other source if the case being cited is reported in Session Cases.
Initially the law reports were of cases heard in the Court of Session only and were named for the editors who managed the collection of law reports thus Shaw (1821–37), Dunlop (1838–61), Macpherson (1862–72), Rettie (1873–97) and Fraser (1898–1905).
The series has covered cases heard in the High Court of Justiciary, Scotland's supreme criminal court since the beginning of the Rettie series in 1873.
Current law reports published in Session Cases are available in hard copy from the SCLR itself and in digital form on these three commercial services.
Uniquely, in Scotland, all the law reports published in Session Cases are prepared by practising advocates or solicitor advocates who have rights of audience in the Scottish courts whose cases they report.