Philip Isaac Caplan, Lord Caplan, FRPS AFIAP (24 February 1929 – 7 November 2008) was a British lawyer and judge. He was a

Senator of the College of Justice The senators of the College of Justice are judges of the College of Justice, a set of legal institutions involved in the administration of justice in Scotland. There are three types of senator: Lords of Session (judges of the Court of Session); ...

in Scotland from 1989 to 2000. Caplan was born into a Jewish family in Glasgow, the only son of businessman Hyman Caplan and his wife, Rosalena Caplan. He was educated at Eastwood High School and the University of Glasgow. He was a

solicitor A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...

between 1952 and 1956, before being

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

in 1957. He became a Queen's Counsel in 1970. He was appointed

Sheriff A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...

of Lothian and Borders in 1979, then Sheriff Principal of North Strathclyde in 1983. In 1989, he was appointed a

, taking the title Lord Caplan. He sat both the Outer and Inner House, and retired in 2000. During his tenure, Caplan was one of the two Jewish judges on the Scottish High Court bench, alongside

Hazel Cosgrove, Lady Cosgrove Hazel Josephine Cosgrove, Lady Cosgrove, KC CBE (née Aronson; born 12 January 1946), is a Scottish lawyer and judge who served as a Senator of the College of Justice from 1996 to 2006. She was the first woman appointed to the College of Just ...

. As a judge, Caplan heard what was then Scotland's longest civil case, which ran over 391 days, concerning the explosion of the oil platform Piper Alpha. In 1997, he issued a 1,500 page judgment which blamed the explosion on two dead platform workers, contradicting the report of Lord Cullen, which had blamed the platform's operator. Caplan was also a noted photographer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caplan, Philip 1929 births 2008 deaths Fellows of the Royal Photographic Society Senators of the College of Justice Alumni of the University of Glasgow Scottish solicitors Scottish barristers Scottish sheriffs Scottish Jews Scottish photographers People from Glasgow