Page 16 - Quadrangle: 39th Edition

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IN CONVERSATION WITH

KEITH STEWART QC

Amongst the complexities of the pandemic, FPs far and wide had some wonderful personal and professional successes
to celebrate. 2020 might be the year we want to forget, but not for Keith Stewart QC (1983). In October 2020, Keith was
appointed as the new Advocate General for Scotland by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
As well as being a proud Herioter, Keith is a criminal lawyer who was called to the bar in 1993. He became a QC in 2011
and has been given a life peerage in the House of Lords in order to fulfil his new position as the Advocate General for
Scotland. His new title is Lord Stewart of Dirleton.
Keith took over the role from the previous Advocate General, Lord Keen of Elie, after he resigned over the UK Government’s
Internal Market Bill.
Quadrangle caught up with Keith to chat all things Heriot’s, law and the importance of supporting the work of the UK
Government.
As a Herioter, how did your Heriot’s education impact
your decision to go into Law?
When I was at school I never thought much about what
I would do when I left, other than going on to university -
which I always wanted to do. My university degree was in
English language and literature: I didn’t take any steps
towards law as a career. In the sense of things that might
anticipate what I have done since I left, the closest thing
would be having the power, as a prefect, to impose fifty lines!

Much more important, though, was a school environment
where debate was encouraged, and where we learned - both
inside and outside - to argue properly about things, both with
our teachers and one another. Looking back, I see how skilled
the teachers were in drawing us out of ourselves and trying to
engage our interest in subjects on a higher level - so that we
had the idea that we could participate in complex and serious
discussions; and that these subjects could be of absorbing
interest in themselves.
What are your fondest memories of your time at Heriot’s?
It is very difficult to select from so many, from my first day in
Mr Smith’s class in P6 at the top of a tower. But, if pushed: trips
to Orkney in P7 and, in S4, to Spain with Mr Buchanan and
Mr Neill; the Christmas Concert at the Usher Hall, and the P7
‘operas’; writing a ‘medieval chronicle’ whilst studying 14th
Century Scotland, and a ‘novel’ about the Jacobites; hours in
the art department (I wove a tapestry in 6th year); vigorous
and occasionally uproarious debate in class - Miss Neilson’s
sixth year studies History class, on the American Civil War,
Geography with Mr Cowan, the consequences of global