Ewan Reid Easton was born in May 1958. His professional life was rooted in Scotland, whose legal system kept its own institutions and traditions after the Union of 1707 and therefore formed a distinct professional environment for lawyers trained and practising there.
Easton holds a Bachelor of Laws degree. Scottish legal education prepares students for a system that differs from English law, combining Scots law with the wider legal framework of the United Kingdom.
He was admitted in Scotland in 1983. Admission in Scotland qualified him to practise within the country's legal profession, which includes solicitors who may be admitted to the Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet.
Easton's documented career is centred on Scottish commercial law. He was appointed an LLP member of Maclay Murray & Spens LLP on 30 June 2006 and resigned on 28 October 2017. The firm was founded in Glasgow in 1871 by David Maclay, David Murray and John Spens as the first law firm in Scotland with a specifically commercial practice. By its final years it had offices in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.
Easton is recorded as a partner of the firm in the period of his membership. Maclay Murray & Spens was one of only a few remaining large independent Scottish law firms and served clients throughout the United Kingdom.
In July 2017 the firm announced that it would merge with Dentons, then the largest law firm in the world by number of lawyers. The merger was completed in late October 2017 with the adoption of the Dentons brand, shortly after Easton's membership of the LLP ended on 28 October 2017.
The Society of Writers to Her Majesty's Signet is a private society of Scottish solicitors dating back to 1594 and forming part of the College of Justice, which James V established in 1532. The Keeper of the Signet is the senior officer of the society and issues commissions to new members, who are entitled to use the postnominal letters WS.
