Lady Elish Angiolini, LT DBE PC KC FRSE has been sworn in as Lord Clerk Register at a ceremony this morning at the Court of Session.  Lady Elish becomes the first woman to hold the role having been appointed in July by His Majesty the King, on the recommendation of the First Minister.

The office is the oldest of the remaining great officers of state. The other officers of state are the Keeper of the Great Seal (now the First Minister), the Lord Advocate, the Lord Justice-Clerk, and the Lord Justice General. Historically, the office has had three sets of functions: responsibility for public registers and records, Commissioner for the Regalia and Keeper of the Signet. Only the latter two remain.

The Lord Clerk Register, in their capacity as Keeper of the Signet, also fulfils a ceremonial function as the senior officer of the Society of Writers to the Signet.

In 2006 Dame Elish became the first woman in 500 years to be appointed as Lord Advocate, Scotland's senior Law Officer and she created another legal first in 2008 when she and Frank Mulholland QC (the then Solicitor General and now the Rt. Hon. Lord Mulholland) were admitted as members of the Faculty of Advocates.  Having stepped down from her post as Lord Advocate in May 2011, Dame Elish joined Terra Firma Chambers where she remains a non-practising member.