About the firm
A commercial practice of five partners and two associates, working from a single office in Glasgow for Scottish businesses, for owners whose affairs cross borders, and for the private clients among them.
Established in Glasgow, and still here.
The firm was established in Glasgow in 1987 as a small commercial practice acting for owner-managed businesses in the west of Scotland, and that remains in substance what it does. The work has grown more technical over four decades and the clients have grown larger, but the shape of the practice has changed very little: partners who know the file, a short chain between the question and the answer, and a limit on how much work is taken on at one time.
We act principally for private companies, including trading businesses, family shareholdings, professional partnerships and the property-holding vehicles that sit alongside them. Some have been clients for decades. Others instruct us once, for a single transaction, and we do not hear from them again. Both are welcome. What the firm is not built for is volume, and it runs no high-turnover conveyancing operation and no consumer practice.
A significant part of the work now reaches beyond Scotland. Scottish businesses sell to foreign buyers, foreign groups acquire and fund Scottish subsidiaries, supply chains and contracts run across several countries, and the owners of those businesses hold assets and have families in more than one place.
The firm has answered that by qualification rather than by referral where it can. Members of the firm are admitted in England and Wales and in the Republic of Ireland as well as in Scotland, which covers the two systems our clients meet most often. Beyond those, we work alongside lawyers qualified in the relevant country and take responsibility for co-ordinating their advice with ours rather than leaving the client to reconcile it.
Alongside the commercial practice, our Managing Partner acts for a small number of private clients: individuals and families of substantial means, generally people whose companies the firm already knows. That work covers succession and wills, trusts, family investment structures, lifetime giving and the ownership of heritable property. Scottish succession law differs materially from English succession law, and planning drawn on an English model regularly needs to be redone.
Most of our matters begin in one of three ways. A business is being bought, sold or restructured and the transaction needs to be documented properly. An agreement is about to be signed, or has been signed and has gone wrong. Or a relationship between people who own something together has broken down, and the constitutional documents are read carefully for the first time.
The firm's Glasgow base is a practical matter as much as a sentimental one. The Court of Session sits in Edinburgh, the sheriff court in Glasgow is among the busiest in Scotland, and the Registers of Scotland, Revenue Scotland and the Accountant in Bankruptcy are Scottish institutions operating Scottish procedure. Working inside that system continuously, and not occasionally, is what the firm is for.
Four commitments.
Scots law, in a practice that crosses borders
The firm is a Scottish practice and Scots law is what it is built on. Members of it are also qualified in England and Wales and in the Republic of Ireland, so advice on those systems is given in-house rather than referred out. Where a question turns on the law of a country in which none of us is qualified, we instruct lawyers who are and co-ordinate their advice with ours. We will always tell you which part of an answer is ours.
The person you instruct does the work
A matter is handled by the partner or associate you spoke to. Where a colleague is better placed to deal with part of it, you are told before the file moves and not afterwards. The firm is small enough that you can telephone the person handling your work and expect to reach them.
A recommendation, not a menu
Setting out the options is the easier half of the job. Our practice is to say which of them we would take and why, to be clear about the points on which we are uncertain, and to distinguish between the risks that are material and the risks that merely exist.
Knowing what to decline
The firm takes fewer matters than a practice of its size might. Where a matter needs resources we do not have, or falls outside the work we do properly, we say so at the first conversation and suggest somewhere better placed, which is on occasion a larger firm.
What instructing us involves.
Every matter follows the same four steps. They are set out here so there is nothing to discover later.
A first conversation
You describe the position. We tell you whether it is work the firm does, what it is likely to involve, and whether it needs a solicitor at all. There is no charge for that conversation and it commits neither side to anything.
A written engagement
If the matter proceeds we send a letter of engagement with our terms of business. It records what we are instructed to do, what falls outside that scope, who will carry out the work, and how our fees will be calculated and billed. No work begins before it is agreed.
The work itself
The named partner or associate does the work. You are told when the position changes, including when it changes for the worse, and you are told before costs move materially rather than afterwards.
Closing the file
At the end of a matter we write to confirm what has been done, what remains outstanding, and what should be diarised. Papers are returned or retained in accordance with our terms of business and our retention policy.