A NEW sheriff is set to be installed in Greenock next week as one of more than a dozen judicial appointments across the country.

Sean Lynch will be formally welcomed to the post during a ceremony at Greenock Sheriff Court on May 8.

He will fill the court's summary sheriff vacancy following Sheena Fraser's move up to full sheriff last year.

According to the Judiciary of Scotland, Sheriff Lynch was educated at Saint Joseph’s Academy in Kilmarnock and at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow before being admitted as a solicitor in 1984.

He has been a partner in Ayrshire-based firm McCluskey Browne since 1988 dealing mainly with civil litigation and is a past dean of the Kilmarnock Faculty of Solicitors.

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Between 2018 and 2021 he was external examiner in professional legal practice and ethics at the University of Strathclyde.

He served as a temporary sheriff in 1999 and has held a commission as a part-time summary sheriff since January 2022.

Sheriff Lynch is one of three recent appointments in the North Strathclyde sheriffdom and one of 13 throughout five jurisdictions nationwide.

Collette Gallagher, Anna Reid, Joseph Stewart, Lorna Anderson, Clare Arias, Angela Farrell, Edward Gilroy, Maria Kicinski, Mark Allan, Neil Kinnear, Clair McLachlan and Mark O’Hanlon have also been appointed to the office of summary sheriff, on the recommendation of outgoing first minister Humza Yousaf.