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Gerry Maher

British lawyer

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 30, 2025
Entity authorityQ5552859
Source-derived summary

Gerard 'Gerry' Maher KC (1953–2023) was a Scottish lawyer and academic. He was a Law Commissioner at the Scottish Law Commission from 2000 to 2008, Professor of Criminal Law at Strathclyde Law School from 1992 to 2000, and a Professor of Criminal Law at the University of Edinburgh.

Maher studied Law at the University of Glasgow and obtained a B.Litt. at the University of Oxford in 1976. He was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1987 and was a practising Advocate from 1989 to 1991. He was appointed as a full-time Commissioner at the Scottish Law Commission in February 2000, and was appointed Queen's Counsel in 2003.

Maher was the author of textbooks on international private law and (with Sheriff Douglas Cusine) was the author of a textbook on the law of diligence (the means by which civil law judgments are enforced against assets in Scotland). During his time at the Scottish Law Commission, Maher had responsibility for finalising the Commission work on the reform of the law of diligence - largely implemented by the Bankruptcy and Diligence (Scotland) Act 2007. Maher was in charge of the Scottish Law Commission's proposed reform of rape laws. His term of office at the Commission ended in 2008.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Gerry Maher” as british lawyer. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1953, 2023, 2000, 2008—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2000-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Gerry, Maher and British can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british lawyer. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 30, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q5552859. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1953, 2023, 2000 and 2008.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Gerry Maher”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Gerry Maher primary sources, Gerry Maher archive and Gerry research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Gerry Maher”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Gerry Maher” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.