IT WAS not for nothing that Malcolm Morison was known in Parliament House as "tiger".

The tigerish quality was what distinguished his advocacy.

Even from the bench, his pursuit of the "right" answer had the same relentless character. When he sank his forensic teeth into a problem, or a witness, he did not let go until satisfied that the truth of the matter had emerged.

But, despite the apprehensions of younger advocates intimidated by his fierceness on the bench, he was open to persuasion. He just liked to start on firm ground; so he did his homework with great thoroughness and, having come to a provisional view, challenged the advocate, and indeed his fellow judges, to persuade him that he was wrong. At the very start of an appeal hearing on some difficult legal issue, he would charge into the debate, burning bright. If, as the arguments unfolded, new perspectives emerged pointing to a different conclusion, the roar became a gentle purring. If he was not persuaded, and others persisted in their heresies, he would sigh with despair at the blindness of those who had failed to follow his remorseless logic.

This quality, this tenacity in holding to a position until it was shown to be untenable, characterised his practice as an advocate. He "devilled" to George Emslie, who later became a powerful Lord Justice General.

Malcolm admired George Emslie (known to many as "The Colonel"), especially his reluctance to suffer fools gladly. Malcolm's temperament matched that of his devil-master. Perhaps he could not quite pretend to the haughty disdain that marked his exemplar: apart from anything else, he lacked the moustache that The Colonel would twitch when his patience was nearing exhaustion. But Malcolm developed his own mannerisms and body language to let you know that you were wrong, that he knew better; and more fool you for not having the wit to see it. What lay behind it all was a passionate commitment to finding the legally and logically sound solution.

His father, Sir Ronald Peter Morison QC, elected dean of faculty in 1944, was the best advocate of his generation. He was another hero for Malcolm, who made it a central goal of his professional life to be worthy of his father's pre-eminence among Advocates. "R P" had already left the Bar when Malcolm was admitted to the faculty in 1956. But there was still much goodwill and admiration for the legal skills and unrivalled fluency of the departed outstanding advocate; and Malcolm's early days in practice benefited from his resemblance to his father in his looks and in his respect for the law. He did not let his father down.

When he entered practice, the Scottish Bar had two distinct groups of practitioners, "pursuers' counsel", whose staple fare was "reparation" (seeking damages as compensation for injury), divorce and crime, and "defenders' counsel" acting for insurance companies - or nationalised industries - in damages actions and engaging in commercial and trust work.

Malcolm's background made him a natural for the defenders' camp where he usually acted as junior to a leading QC. One result was that it was not until he himself took silk that he emerged as a distinctive pleader in his own right. Then he came into his own as a lawyer and a determined advocate.

His distinctive "English" accent, polished at Winchester, perhaps inhibited him from undertaking criminal work:

adapting to the idioms and cadences familiar to those practising in the High Court in Glasgow could have been a problem.

But when Malcolm became a judge, in 1985, sitting in criminal trials and appeals took up much of his time. Despite a lack of substantial experience in the criminal courts, he applied there the same relentless pursuit of the right answer, arrived at by the correct legal processes. He would not let anyone away with loose and shoddy reasoning.

However, his greatest regret was that the huge volume of criminal work prevented him from making - as a judge - the contribution to the development of the civil law that he aspired to.

Malcolm Morison was a private person, almost shy at times.

That was ref lected in his choice of sport. He liked nothing more than to stand alone in a Highland river or in the north of Norway or Russia waiting for hours to take a fish. His patience on the tennis court was less, for he was his own severest critic. He loved opera, particularly the great Verdi tragedies, Macbeth and Otello.

Malcolm was good to know.

We battled for two years in the interminable fluoride case. I acted for the water authority: he represented a determined petitioner, advancing the proposition that, as she had no teeth, adding fluoride to her water supply could do her no good and might well do her some harm. We emerged good friends despite innumerable battles. It is a tribute to the ethos of the Faculty of Advocates that legal opponents so often became warm friends: the forensic hostility is discarded with the wig.

Malcolm Morison will be remembered by many throughout the legal fraternity for his very positive qualities. Away from Parliament House he found personal happiness with his beloved Birgitta. For all who worked closely with him, his sense of humour, his wit, his capacity to laugh at himself, his intellectual honesty and his unyielding determination to get the right answer rank foremost in our memories.

He is survived by his wife Birgitta, whom he married in 1980, and by Joanna and Simon, the children of his first marriage.

Alastair Malcolm Morison, advocate and judge; born February 12, 1931, died July 31, 2005.