Joe Beltrami, the celebrated Glasgow defence lawyer, won recognition for a career spanning more than 50 years when he was presented earlier this month with the top individual prize in the Law Awards of Scotland 2008 in association with Registers of Scotland.

Joe Beltrami, the celebrated Glasgow defence lawyer, won recognition for a career spanning more than 50 years when he was presented earlier this month with the top individual prize in the Law Awards of Scotland 2008 in association with Registers of Scotland.

Beltrami received a lifetime achievement award, sponsored by The Herald.

The veteran lawyer received his prize at a ceremony in Glasgow organised by The Firm magazine, at which more than 600 of his fellow professionals gave a spontaneous standing ovation in recognition of the impact he had made in a career spanning most of the post-war period.

Now 76 and still working in Glasgow, Beltrami has become one of the most celebrated defence lawyers of the 20th century.

He is credited with saving more than a dozen clients from the hangman's noose, and it has been said that no-one in Scotland has more experience of fighting miscarriages of justice than Beltrami.

His biggest case was that of Paddy Meehan, who received the only royal pardon granted by the Queen last century in Scotland in respect of the crime of murder.

Meehan was released in 1976 after serving seven years and later received £52,000 in compensation for the wrongful conviction for killing Rachel Ross in an Ayrshire robbery.

The only other pardon granted last century in Scotland - in 1975 - was also for one of Beltrami's clients, Maurice Swanson, wrongly convicted for a bank robbery.

Born in 1932, Beltrami is the son of a Swiss father and Scottish mother. He grew up in the Briggait, close to the former High Court building in Glasgow, and was educated at St Aloysius College and Glasgow University, where he graduated with a bachelor of law degree within two years.

On leaving the army after national service in 1956, he returned to temporary employment with James F Reilly solicitors, to whom he had been apprenticed, and set up on his own in 1958 in Buchanan Street, Glasgow.

Over the years he has instructed in more than 350 murder cases and appeared in every court in Scotland, from Shetland to Duns.

In 1993, Beltrami became the first solicitor-advocate to appear and speak in the Court of Criminal Appeal.

Presenting the law awards, Donald Findlay QC paid a generous tribute to Beltrami: "This man instructed me in my first Glasgow High Court trial.

"Fortunately I was successful, or there might not have been a second. For over 30 years he has been my mentor, my instructing solicitor and my friend. In good times and bad, he has shown me unswerving loyalty - something that is all too rare nowadays. In every case I ever did for him, he stubbornly refused to consider that his client might be guilty.

"But more than that, he is unique - a true one-off."

Findlay said Beltrami upheld the principle that every- one, no matter how grave or extreme the charges against them, should have the most robust defence.

Findlay added that Beltrami had maintained a personal reputation of the highest integrity, having represented such "notorious" figures as Jimmy Boyle, Arthur Thompson and Meehan.

Steven Raeburn, editor of The Firm legal magazine, said: "It is fitting that his amazing career should be capped off with recognition of his lifetime of memorable service.

"Even then, I think he was a little overwhelmed when he came up to collect the award, which he said he almost deserved'."

The independent law awards are now in their fifth year.

Winners were selected in a two-stage judging process, designed to make the Law Awards of Scotland the only truly independent legal awards in the country.

The process began with the polling of around 6000 clients and legal professionals, who were asked to rate those they believed to be at the top of the profession.

The firms and professionals to achieve the highest ratings were then invited to submit a 1000-word report outlining why they deserved to be named as a winner in their category.