Ian Quigley's documented career is centered in Glasgow, Scotland's largest city and a long-standing center of commercial and legal activity. Scotland has its own legal institutions and traditions, separate from those of England and Wales, and its legal profession developed through bodies such as the Society of Writers to the Signet and local faculties of solicitors.
Quigley's qualifications include a Bachelor of Laws degree, and the name Richard A.F. Clark is linked to that qualification.
A Bachelor of Laws is an undergraduate law degree. In Scotland it forms part of the academic preparation for the solicitor's profession, which is completed through a period of training before admission.
Quigley was admitted to the bar in Scotland in 1972, a step that opened a career in Scottish legal practice. Solicitors in Scotland came under a national regulatory framework when the Law Society of Scotland was established by statute in 1949, and membership of that body became required for all practising solicitors. Admission in 1972 therefore took place within that structure.
By 2007 Quigley was a partner in Maclay Murray & Spens, a commercial law firm based in Glasgow. The firm was founded in 1871 by David Maclay, David Murray and John Spens as the first law firm in Scotland with a specifically commercial practice. In 2017 it completed a merger with Dentons, the world's largest law firm by number of lawyers, and adopted the Dentons brand.
Quigley's professional activities also include service as a notary public. In Scotland, notaries are regulated by the Law Society of Scotland and the Faculty of Notaries Public, and notarial work commonly involves authenticating documents and signatures for use abroad.
(Article published in February 2007 in the Law Society of ...)
2007
Quigley's documented membership includes the Society of Writers to the Signet, through which Quigley holds the status of Writer to the Signet. The society is a private association of Scottish solicitors dating back to 1594 and part of the College of Justice, which was established in 1532. Its members originally held special privileges in preparing documents that required the Signet, the royal seal of the Scottish kings. The society now operates as an independent, non-regulatory body and maintains the Signet Library in Edinburgh.
Quigley's documented membership also includes the Royal Faculty of Procurators in Glasgow, a professional body of legal practitioners incorporated before 1668 to support and regulate the procurators of the Commissary Court of Glasgow. A royal charter of 1796 confirmed its royal title. Today the body serves the legal profession in Glasgow and West Central Scotland, providing members with a major law library, continuing professional development, and related services.
