Maclay Murray & Spens
No of UK Partners: 69
No of UK Assistant Solicitors: 170
Other UK Fee Earners: 102
www.mms.co.uk
With over 300 lawyers, Maclay Murray & Spens is Scotland’s largest law firm and, like its rivals in the country’s “big four” – Dundas & Wilson, McGrigors and Shepherd + Wedderburn – Maclays is following a UK-wide strategy.
Indeed, despite the problems encountered by the Scottish legal market in the early years of the new century, the firm has been firmly in expansion mode – and the management clearly prefers to do its shopping in boutiques.
In 2001, it absorbed highly-rated employment boutique, Mackay Simon. Then in 2003, it opened an office in Aberdeen serving the oil and gas market which is continuing to expand. It followed this move up later the same year by acquiring London corporate and property boutique, Fenners.
Finally, in late 2004, it brought its London strength up to 70 lawyers by merging with financial services boutique, the City Law Partnership. Maclays has supplemented this growth with a number of high-profile lateral hires, in both Scotland and in London. Turnover has more than trebled since 1998 and the future holds out more of the same, particularly in the London office, which the firm intends to grow to match its Edinburgh and Glasgow fee-earner headcounts.
“We have a straightforward strategy of growth and we can act very quickly when opportunities arise,” says marketing director, David Sanders.
Rated superb by the Legal 500 across all practice areas and, as with its big 4 rivals, MMS enjoys top-billing in the directories across all of its mainstream practice areas – banking, capital projects, commercial litigation, construction, corporate, tax, employment and property - but the firm claims an advantage over its top tier rivals in IP, EU, competition and regulatory law (it is the only Scottish firm with a Brussels office) and in its London AIM practice. Another area where it differs from its obvious competitors is in its continued commitment to its private client practice, one of the biggest in Scotland, even taking on McGrigors’ Glasgow private client team in 2001 following a strategic review at the latter.
MMS is the sole UK member of Lex Mundi, the worlds leading association of independent legal firms, offering clients access to advice in 98 countries.
In addition to its roster of Scotland’s great and good, corporate clients of the firm include McDonald Hotels, Ben Sherman, Bank of Scotland, Nationwide Building Society, Morrison Homes, Pringle of Scotland, Scottish Enterprise, Stannifer Developments Limited, Asda, 3i and the Guinness Trust.
The emphasis on London does not mean that recruitment in Scotland is on hold and wherever candidates apply, the same criteria apply - Maclays is interested in technically sound, commercial, client-focused lawyers, with business development capability or potential and a sound track record.
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