Professor Auchie is a lawyer, academic and resolver with almost three decades of experience of dispute management. He has taught litigation, arbitration, mediation and other dispute resolution methods to thousands of law students (as well as students from other disciplines) over his 20-year academic career. He holds a chair in Dispute Process Law with the School of Law, University of Aberdeen. He has published books, book chapters and journal articles on evidence and process.
Derek has resolved disputes as a tribunal judge, an arbitrator (both as sole arbitrator and arbitral chair) and as a mediator.
For 17 years, Derek has been a tribunal judge (legal member), chairing evidential hearings in over 700 cases in three disciplinary jurisdictions. He has dealt with complex factual and legal questions, writing fully reasoned decisions in all cases. He has decided cases alone and as chair of panels of three. All of the hearings he has chaired have involved both factual and expert evidence. Derek has also sat in medical professional disciplinary proceedings.
For five years, Derek has acted as an in-house judge (in house legal member) for a Tribunal chamber, assisting the President in a range of activities including: interlocutory (procedural) decision-making; making decisions on applications for permission to appeal; overseeing case management of disputes; contributing to discussions on policy and process; mentoring judges; assisting with drafting judicial guidance; assisting with responses to government consultations and scrutinising tribunal decisions for publication approval.
A major part of Derek’s in-house role involves (under the President’s supervision) devising all judicial training in the Chamber. Derek has written a detailed judicial guide on process for the Chamber and he has helped to draft an extensive Judicial Decision Writing Toolkit.
Derek has been involved in judicial recruitment selection exercises.
When in practice, Derek was a busy litigation lawyer, dealing with civil and criminal cases of all types, shapes and sizes, pleading in numerous courts, and instructing counsel in some of the Supreme Courts in Scotland, as well as in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London.