Born at
Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow, son of William, a lift engineer, and Catherine, a payroll clerk, Willie Bain grew up in the Carron area of
Springburn. Raised in the Roman Catholic faith, Bain attended
St Roch's Secondary School and
Strathclyde University, graduating with an
LLB in 1995. Thereafter, he completed a
Diploma in Legal Practice in 1996, and moved into part-time lecturing and research at the University of
Strathclyde Law School, working with the Law School's Centre for Parliamentary and Legislative Studies on research projects on devolution. He completed an
LLM by Research in Constitutional Law in 2004 and subsequently became a senior lecturer in
Public and
European law at
London South Bank University between 2004 and 2009. He was secretary of the
Glasgow North East Constituency Labour Party and its predecessor constituency,
Glasgow Springburn, from 1999 to 2009. Bain is a member of
Unite,
Progress, the
Fabian Society, and
Amnesty International. ==Parliamentary career==