Lorne Crerar and Hector MacQueen awarded CBEs

Two leading Scots legal figures, one practising and one academic, have been appointed CBE in the Queen's Birthday honours list, while a sheriff has been awarded an OBE.

Professor Lorne Crerar, chairman and co-founder of Harper Macleod, becomes a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for services to economic and community development in Scotland.

Chair of Highlands & Islands Enterprise since 2012, and Professor Emeritus of Banking Law at the University of Glasgow, in 2017 he was appointed as co-chair of a new National Council of Rural Advisers, which delivered a report creating a blueprint for Scotland's rural economy which has been adopted by the Government. He is also a member of the Rural Economic Action Group, tasked with developing Scotland's rural economic policy.

In addition he has undertaken or contributed to a number of independent reviews for the Scottish Government, including the Independent Review of Legal Services in Scotland in 2018, the Enterprise and Skills Review 2017, which led to the creation of the Strategic Board for Enterprise & Skills in Scotland, the Independent Review of Regulation, Audit, Inspection and Complaints handling of public services in Scotland, the Independent Review of the Lending Code, and the Housing Improvement Task Force.

Professor Hector MacQueen, Professor of Private Law at the University of Edinburgh since 1994, receives the CBE for services to legal scholarship. He has been on the staff of the Edinburgh Law School 1979, having also taken his LLB and PhD there. He was Dean of the Law School 1999-2003, and Dean of Research and Deputy Head of the College of Humanities and Social Science in the University 2004-2008.

He served as a Scottish Law Commissioner, full time or part time, from 2009 to 2018. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1995, of the British Academy in 2006, and President of the Society of Legal Scholars 2012-2013, he currently chairs the law section of the British Academy, and is also a cross-member in medieval studies, legal history being among his special interests.

Sheriff Iona McDonald, senior sheriff at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court, is awarded the OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) for services to law and order. Senior sheriff since 2007, she became a sheriff of North Strathclyde in 2000 after serving as temporary sheriff since 1994. On qualifying in the law she practised as a solicitor with Ayr firm Mathie-Morton, Black & Buchanan, where she became a partner in 1982. In 2017 she was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ayrshire and Arran.

In 2010 she was appointed a member of the Scottish Courts Service board, where she is chair of its Estates Committee. She has also been involved in the training of justices of the peace and children’s panel members, and in charity fundraising, especially for the British Heart Foundation.

Honoured for activities outside the law is Lynn Simpson, a senior associate at Shepherd & Wedderburn, who receives the British Empire Medal as head coach, Flyers Trampoline Club and chair of the Trampoline & Tumbling Technical Panel, for services to trampolining.