Two growing firms announce further hires

Two prominent legal firms in Scotland have announced significant partner and other hires today.

Gilson Gray, which has made a raft of high profile lateral hires on and since its launch in 2014, has now seized a property team from Warners, one of the leading residential property firms in the capital.

Partner Deborah McCathie, who has been with Warners for nine years, becomes partner and head of residential conveyancing at Gilson Gray, tasked with further expanding its property team throughout Scotland.

Joining her from Warners are senior solicitor Cheryl Anderson and paralegal Emma Mackenzie.

Gilson Gray said it expected to announce appointments of “other senior team members” to its offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow shortly.

Meanwhile two lateral hires by Harper Macleod have increased the firm's partner strength in Edinburgh to 20, and to 72 across the country.

Richard Murray, a private client specialist and former head of the wealth protection team at Shoosmiths' Edinburgh office, and Dawn Robertson, an accredited specialist in employment law whose recent experience includes Young & Partners, Tods Murray and Murray Beith Murray, have both joined Harper Macleod.

Since Harper Macleod moved to larger Edinburgh offices at Citypoint, Haymarket, it has nearly doubled its partner count in the capital, adding nine partners among a total of 18 new staff.

It too is predicting further growth in market share, particularly in Edinburgh and the east of Scotland.

Harper Macleod has also recruited private client solicitor Samantha Taylor to its Inverness office from Macleod & MacCallum.