Sir John, a Scottish lawyer, was the second son of James Skene of Ramore, and of Janet the second daughter of Alexander Burnet of Leys, and was born about the year 1540. He is said to have been partly educated at King's College, Aberdeen; but he is known to have been incorporated at St Andrews in the year 1556, and in this university he took the degree of A.M. In 1564 and 1565 he taught as one of the regents of St Mary's College. According to Dempster's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Scotorum, he spent a great part of his youth in Norway, Denmark, and Poland. Skene mentions that, after spending seven years abroad, he returned from the University of Wittemberg in 1574, honoured with an annual pension from the Elector of Saxony, and imbued with some knowledge of the civil law. On revisiting his native country, he finally made choice of the legal profession, and was admitted as an advocate on the 19th of March 1575. He speedily acquired some degree of distinction as a lawyer.

The Earl of Morton, then regent of the kingdom, had formed a plan for reducing the laws into a more easy form and method. The execution of the plan was committed to Skene and to Sir James Balfour, president of the Court of Session. The labours of Skene, whatever may have been their nature or extent, were, on the 10th of June 1577, rewarded by the grant of an annual pension of "ten chalders of meal," payable out of the revenues of the abbey of Aberbrothock. Skene accompanied the Earl Marischal on an embassy to Denmark, to negotiate a marriage with a Danish princess, in 1589. Dr Craig, physician to the king, addressed a letter to Tycho Brahe, recommending his friendly attentions Skene, Swinton, Nicolson, and Fowler, who were all attached to this mission. In the course of the same year, Skene was conjoined with David Makgill for executing the office of his Majesty's advocate; and in 1590 he was associated with Colonel Stewart in an embassy to some of the princes of Germany (Moyse's Memoirs of the Affairs of Scotland, p. 84, Edinb. 1830, 4to). During the same year he was employed on an embassy to the States-General (Maidment's Analecta Scotiae, vol. i. p. 51). In 1592 an act of parliament authorized the chancellor, assisted by other commissioners, of whom Skene was one, to institute a general examination of the municipal laws, to consider what laws and acts should be known to the king's subjects, and to take the necessary steps for printing them (Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, vol. iii., p. 564). The most laborious part of this undertaking devolved upon Skene; and, after an interval of five years, he published The Laues and Acts of Parliament maid be King James the First and his Successors, Kinges of Scotland: vised, collected, and extracted furth of the Register. Edinb. 15 Martii A.D. 1597, fol. According to our present mode of reckoning, the book was published in the year 1598. With a separate title it includes a treatise, De Verborum Significatione. The Exposition of the Termes and difficil Wordes, contained in the foure bokes of Regiam Majestatem, and others, in the Acts of Parliament, Infiftments, and used in Practique of this Realme, with diverse rules and common places, or principallies of the Laues: collected and exposéd be Mr. John Skene, Clerke of our Sovereine Lordis Register, Counsell and Rollis.

In September 1594 he had been appointed to the office of clerk-register, in the room of Alexander Hay of Easter Kennet, whom he also succeeded as one of the judges of the Court of Session. In 1604 he was associated with other commissioners for discussing the terms of a union between the two kingdoms. About the beginning of the year 1607 he had prepared another work for the press; and "the meanness of his estate and fortune not answering to his wit, ingenuity, and literature," the privy council, after having examined it, addressed a letter to the king, requesting him to provide the means for its publication (Brunton and Haig's Historical Account of the Senators of the College of Justice, p. 232). His manuscript was afterwards presented to Parliament, and, having been highly approved, was ordered to be printed. It was at length published, under the title of Regiam Majestatem, Edinb., 1609, fol. A Scottish translation speedily followed during the same year.

Skene's publications are deficient in critical accuracy, and even in editorial fidelity. It is well known that the treatise De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Regni Angliae, commonly ascribed to Glanville, was at an early period adopted in Scotland, with a few changes and modifications; and that, under this new form, it bears the title of Regiam Majestatem, from the initial words of the prologue. Skene was, however, anxious to exhibit Regiam Majestatem as the original, and to represent it as having been composed and divulged by the authority of David I., who closed his reign in the year 1153. From what manuscripts he derived his text, he has not thought proper to specify; but several are to be found which contain a reference to Glanville by name, but no more. Having reached an advanced age, he became anxious to secure for his eldest son James the office of clerk-register; but his attempt was defeated by the dexterity of Sir Thomas Hamilton, afterwards successively Earl of Melrose and of Haddington. Skene, or Lord Curriehill, for such was his title on the bench, resigned his office in the year 1612, and he survived till the 16th of March 1617. His last descendant, Elizabeth Skene, bequeathed to the Advocates' Library a collection of family papers, together with a very curious collection of ancient music, which appears to have belonged to this ancestor. The Skene Papers have been carefully bound in a folio volume; and the music has since been published by William Dauney, who has added a copious and elaborate introduction, together with notes and illustrations.