Sheriff Robert D M Fife

Before dinner, Dave Inman, Secretary and past Vice President of the Rotaract Club of Edinburgh gave a short presentation entitled 'What is Rotaract?'

Rotaract is sponsored by Rotary International and is a unique international service organisation for people aged 18 - 30 providing an opportunity for young men and women to enhance their knowledge and skills and to foster leadership through a framework of friendship and service. Worldwide, Rotaract has some 220,000 members and throughout the UK there exists 93 Rotaract Clubs with a total of 3,000 members. The Rotaract Club of Edinburgh, which is twinned with the Deggendorf Rotaract Club in Germany, currently has 15 members actively involved in community projects, fundraising, personal development and international initiatives, plus, of course, enjoying themselves and having fun!   Dave finished his talk by extending an invitation to Rotary Clubs in Edinburgh to achieve improved co-operation and shared working with the local Rotaract Club through shared  events, publicity drives and recruitment and personal development initiatives.

Speaker: Sheriff Robert D. M. Fife

This week we welcomed Robert Fife who has over 30 years experience as a commercial litigator. Until February 2014, he was a solicitor advocate and partner in Anderson Strathern LLP where he headed up the Commercial Litigation Department.  He was chairman of the Appeals Committee of ICAS for over ten years and has a special interest in health & safety law. He was lead partner for the Health & Safety Executive in Scotland and had a lead role representing INEOS, based at Grangemouth, for some years. Sheriff Fife is a renowned speaker across Scotland covering all aspects of health and safety law, etc. He was a part-time Sheriff for 15 years before taking up his current full-time role as Sheriff at Paisley.

During his interesting talk, Robert reflected on his time as a lawyer citing examples of his dealings with 'angry customers', sudden memory loss, and unexpected excuses, actions and explanations given before the jury. His talk, during which he impressed the important role of the jury in serious crime and compensation cases, was structured under four headings;