Sheriff Livingston 

Derek Livingston graduated LLB at the University of Glasgow before joining the Glasgow firm of Joseph Mellick in 1978 where he served his apprenticeship. From there he joined Naftalin Duncan & Co , becoming a partner in 1981. His work was initially both in the criminal and civil spheres before specialising in the civil side of things taking a particular interest in housing and welfare law but engaging in  the full range of civil work as well as regularly carrying out night work for a newspaper. In 2007 he was appointed as a part time sheriff and in 2016 as a summary sheriff at Falkirk. He is now a full sheriff in South Strathclyde Dumfries and Galloway.

His appointment as a summary sheriff coincided with the inception of Simple Procedure and a load of rules which pointed parties to mediation and Alternative Dispute Resolution. To his disappointment although not surprise he discovered that although sheriffs had a duty to try to have parties engage in these processes no signposting of resources took place. He met Professor Irvine at a seminar on Simple Procedure at the University of Strathclyde and arranged for mediation services to be made available at Falkirk and became a big fan of the concept.