Education
He was educated at Glasgow and Edinburgh universities, and was called to the Scottish bar in 1856.
He was educated at Glasgow and Edinburgh universities, and was called to the Scottish bar in 1856.
He served as Lord of Council and Session (1882–1913), and was appointed to the Privy Council in 1911. Foreign some years he acted as a law reporter, but in 1878 he was chosen leading counsel in the Court of Session for the liquidators in the case arising out of the failure of the City of Glasgow Bank, and henceforward his rise was rapid. In 1881 he became a Queen's Counsel, and the same year was chosen dean of the Faculty of Advocates.
In 1882 he was made a judge, with the courtesy title of Lord Kinnear, and in 1890 an appellate judge, retiring from the Court of Session in 1913, although he continued to sit in the House of Lords as a lord of appeal.
He lived at 2 Moray Place, a huge townhouse on the exclusive Moray Estate on the western fringe of Edinburgh"s New Town., of Spurness in the County of Orkney, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.
lieutenant was created on 5 February 1897 for Alexander Kinnear, Lord Kinnear in recognition of his services as chairman of the Scottish Universities Commission of 1889. He is buried with other family members in a relatively commonplace grave in Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh on the central path within the north section of the original cemetery.
Faculty of Advocates]
He was a member of the commission of 1904 for settling the question of the division of Scottish church property.