Education
Edinburgh Academy.
Edinburgh Academy.
His reputation is as one of the most outstanding judges of the 20th century. Educated at Edinburgh Academy and Jesus College, Cambridge, he was admitted as an advocate in 1914. He was commissioned into the 8th Royal Scots in World War I and was seconded to the Machine Gun Corps in 1916, reaching the rank of Major.
He resigned his commission in 1921.
He was appointed a King"s Counsel in 1932. He served as Solicitor General for Scotland from June 1936 until June 1941, and as Lord Advocate from June 1941 until July 1945, and was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1941.
From 1945 to 1948 he was Dean of the Faculty of Advocates. In 1948 he was appointed as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and received a Law Life Peerage as Baron Reid, of Drem in East Lothian.
He sat as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary until 1975.
He was one of very few men to be appointed a Law Lord straight from the Bar, without any intervening judicial experience. Bonnington Castings Limited v Wardlaw Air Corps 613, 2 WLR 707, 1 All Emergency 615
Rookes v. Barnard Air Corps 1129
Beswick v Beswick Air Corps 58
Dorset Yacht Company Limited v Home Office Air Corps 1004
McGhee v National Coal Board 3 All Emergency 1008
Norwich Pharmacal Company v Customs and Excise Commissioners Air Corps 133
Overseas Tankship (United Kingdom) Limited v Morts Dock and Engineering Company Limited 1 All Emergency 404.
Faculty of Advocates. 36th United Kingdom Parliament. 37th United Kingdom Parliament.
38th United Kingdom Parliament]
He was Member of Parliament (Member of Parliament) for Stirling and Falkirk from October 1931 until his defeat in November 1935, and for Glasgow Hillhead from June 1937 until September 1948.