Ailsa MacDonald

Members and staff of New Park Court Chambers past and present were among an estimated five hundred mourners at a thanksgiving service on 23^rd May to celebrate the life of Ailsa MacDonald who sadly lost her long and courageous battle with cancer earlier this month.

Good friends and colleagues, Jamie Adams and Stuart Graham, were extensively involved in the service which reminded all present of Ailsa’s talent as a lawyer, a lover of art and architecture, music and the arts and life itself. Most of all however, she was remembered as warm and engaging personality whom everyone admired and loved.

Robert Smith QC, in a moving address to circuit colleagues at Newcastle Combined Courts last week, said, “Ailsa was hugely popular in chambers and among her colleagues at the Bar. It is indeed the case, as Your Honour has said, that she was one of the best loved and respected members of the Bar in Newcastle.”

He continued, “We who have had the pleasure of her company over so many years will miss her charm and her supportive presence, her enduring kindness to others and the cultured and civilized influence that she brought to bear in our professional lives. We at the Bar extend to her family our most sincere sympathies. They will know that our thoughts are with them at this time. With her passing we have lost not just a colleague but a wonderful and kind friend who was an inspiration to us all.”

She will be greatly missed.

Gavin Doig

Deputy Head of Chambers (Newcastle)