Frequently asked questions

In a good many cases you do not, and we will say so. A great many commercial questions are answered by reading the document you already hold, or by a conversation with your accountant. The matters that do require a solicitor are those which create a long-term obligation, those involving heritable property, those in which a time limit may be running, and those in which the relationship between people who own something together is changing. If you are unsure, describe the position and we will tell you which of them it is.

We act for individuals in two capacities.

The first is in their capacity as owners, directors, partners or shareholders, on matters connected with the business.

The second is private client work, led by our Managing Partner, for a small number of individuals and families of substantial means. That covers succession and wills, the creation and running of trusts, family investment companies and other holding structures, lifetime giving, and the ownership of heritable property. Most of those clients come to us through a company the firm already acts for. We do not give tax advice, and we work alongside the client's accountants where tax is in issue.

What we do not take is personal injury, family, criminal or residential conveyancing work. Where an enquiry falls into one of those categories we will decline it and, where we can, suggest a firm that does that work properly.

Materially, and it is the point on which private clients most often arrive with planning that will not work. A Scottish estate cannot be disposed of entirely as the will directs: a surviving spouse or civil partner, and the children, have legal rights in the deceased's moveable estate which take effect whatever the will says.

Planning drawn on an English model, which assumes near-complete testamentary freedom, frequently has to be redone.

You describe the position. We ask questions, and at the end of it we tell you whether it is work the firm does, what it would be 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.

The partner or associate you spoke to. Files are not passed down a chain of people you have not met. Where a colleague is genuinely better placed to deal with part of a matter, you are told before the work moves.

That depends on what else the firm has in hand at the time, and we will give you a realistic answer. Where a deadline is approaching and we cannot meet it, we will say so immediately, so that you can instruct someone who can.

We agree the basis with you in writing before any work begins, in a letter of engagement that comes with our terms of business. Depending on the matter that may be a fixed fee, a fee based on time spent at agreed rates, or a combination of the two. We do not begin work on an unspecified basis and give you the cost afterwards.

We give you the best estimate we honestly can, we tell you what could change it, and we tell you when it does change, before the cost is incurred. Some matters cannot be estimated at the outset, usually because the cost depends on how another party conducts itself. Where that is the case we say so at the time rather than quote a figure we could not stand behind.

For work of predictable scope, frequently. Incorporations, standard-form agreements, straightforward leases and most company secretarial work suit a fixed fee and we would rather quote one. Contested matters and negotiated transactions usually do not, because neither we nor you control how much work the other side generates.

We are required to identify and verify our clients, and to understand the source of funds in a transaction, before we can act. That means providing identification documents and, for a company, information about its ownership and control.

It is not a formality and we cannot begin substantive work without it, so the sooner it is completed the sooner the matter can move.

In commercial matters, yes, and in ways that are easy to miss because so much of the surrounding vocabulary is shared. Scotland has its own courts, its own system of land ownership and registration, its own rules on the valid execution of documents, its own transfer tax, its own enforcement mechanisms and its own rules on how long an obligation survives. Contract law has no doctrine of consideration. Commercial tenants have no statutory right to renew. A partnership is a legal person separate from its partners.

Yes. Members of the firm are qualified in England and Wales as well as in Scotland, so English law advice on a commercial contract is given here rather than referred out.

Where a matter needs an English litigator or a specialism we do not hold, we say so and instruct one.

A substantial part of the firm's work has an element outside Scotland: a foreign buyer of a Scottish business, inward investment, a group with subsidiaries in several countries, a supply contract with a counterparty abroad, enforcement against assets held elsewhere, or a family whose members and property are spread across more than one country.

The distinction that matters is between the matter and the law. The matter may be international. The advice we give is advice on Scots law, because that is what we are qualified to give. Where a question turns on the law of another country we instruct lawyers qualified there, co-ordinate their advice with ours, and take responsibility for producing a single coherent answer rather than leaving you to reconcile several.

We will always tell you which part of an answer is ours.

Scotland, for every member of the firm. In addition, members are admitted in England and Wales and in the Republic of Ireland, the latter being the route by which the firm has kept a direct line into European Union law since Brexit. Between them those three cover the systems our clients meet most often.

For any other country we do not pretend to a qualification we do not hold. We identify the point, instruct lawyers who are qualified there, and co-ordinate their advice with ours.

Yes, in the areas where it still reaches British businesses, which is a longer list than most companies expect. Leaving the European Union changed who has to comply with what and where; it did not remove EU rules from the life of a company selling into the single market. The work covers data protection where personal data moves between the United Kingdom and the EU, product regulation and market access, distribution and agency arrangements with EU counterparties where local protective rules can override the contract, and the growing divergence between the two intellectual property systems.

It depends on the question, and the answer is frequently that both do, in different places. Where the company is registered governs its constitution and its filings. Where the property is situated governs the property. What the contract says governs the contract, unless a statutory rule overrides it. Employment rights are United Kingdom rights but the tribunal is Scottish. The useful step is to identify which of these your question actually is, and that is usually a short conversation.

Either the sheriff court or the Court of Session, and the choice is not always free. Where the total sought is £100,000 or less, the sheriff court has exclusive competence and the Court of Session is not an option.

Both courts operate a specialist commercial procedure with active case management. There is no County Court in Scotland and no Chancery Division, and the terminology differs throughout: the parties are the pursuer and the defender, and the order restraining a party from acting is an interdict.

An initial enquiry should be treated as confidential in practice but not yet privileged. We keep enquiries in confidence as a matter of professional practice, but legal professional privilege attaches once we are engaged. Please do not send privileged or highly sensitive material through the website form until we have confirmed that we are able to act.

Files are retained for a defined period after a matter closes and are then securely destroyed, and the period is set out in our terms of business.

Enquiries submitted through this website's contact form are dealt with separately, and what happens to them is set out in our Privacy Policy.

Tell us, and tell us early. Every firm of Scottish solicitors is required to have a complaints procedure, and ours is published on this site.

There is a practical reason for coming to us first. The Scottish Legal Complaints Commission will not normally accept a complaint until at least four weeks have passed since you raised it with the firm. If you are still not satisfied after that, the SLCC is the independent gateway for complaints about Scottish solicitors and it is free to use. The full process, the three-year time limits, what the SLCC can award and its contact details are all set out on our Complaints Procedure page.

Yes, and not by choice: it is compulsory. Solicitors in private practice in Scotland are covered by the Law Society of Scotland's Master Policy for professional indemnity insurance, which is arranged for the whole profession and provides cover of £2 million per claim. It is written on a claims-made basis and covers civil liability, including negligence.

Separately, there is a profession-wide fund which compensates people who have lost money through the dishonesty of a solicitor or their staff, funded entirely by a levy on solicitors' firms. The Law Society operates it as the Client Protection Fund, though its statutory name remains the Scottish Solicitors Guarantee Fund.

Details of both are available from the Law Society of Scotland.