The Legal 500

This specialist firm of commercial lawyers based in Edinburgh is well known for its commercial property and corporate work, as well as its expertise in dispute resolution, renewable energy, environmental law, employment, residential development and healthcare. The firm is a member of international law group Globalaw.

The firm: Davidson Chalmers advises on the full range of commercial law requirements for Scotland’s business community, notably owner-managed and SME firms, as well as national developers, banks, insurance companies and landowners. The firm acts for a number of multinationals in connection with their Scottish requirements. Clients include Sita, Citigroup, AXA, Muir Group, James Keiller Estates, Beaghmor Property Group and Chris Stewart Associates.

In a marketplace dominated by a handful of very large firms, Davidson Chalmers offers a different approach with its truly hands-on, partner-led service. The firm’s teams of highly experienced lawyers cater to the legal challenges facing any business and it focuses on finding commercial solutions that suit the client by dealing with transactions in a timely, practical and cost-effective manner.

The firm was runner up at the Scott & Co Legal Awards in the following categories: firm of the year, litigation team of the year, and partner Andy Drane in specialist lawyer of the year.

Types of work undertaken: The firm aims to provide a very high quality service to commercial clients across the broad range of legal disciplines required by most businesses operating in the UK. It advises on commercial property; corporate; dispute resolution; employment; construction and projects; residential development and environmental, waste and renewables.

Commercial property is active across all sectors of the Scottish market including investment, landlord and tenant, and development. The hotel sector is a growing part of the team’s practice, as is the purchase, sale and leasing of licensed premises. Recent construction work has ranged from redevelopment projects to open-cast coal mining joint ventures.

The corporate team offers a full range of corporate and commercial legal services, including mergers and acquisitions and MBOs/MBIs, equity investments, commercial contracts, IP/IT, partnerships, joint ventures, corporate restructurings, insolvency, R + D tax credits and corporate banking.

Dispute resolution covers a wide range of mediation services. The team is especially recognised for its outstanding service in property litigation.

Employment advice and representation covers performance management, discipline and grievances, redundancy, discrimination and TUPE transfers.

Residential expertise covers all aspects of land purchase and sale, including planning and infrastructure issues.

The environmental, waste and renewables team act in all areas of renewable energy and has in depth knowledge and experience of dealing with complex environmental disputes, permitting, environmental liability and the like.

Breakdown of work %
Commercial property 38
Corporate 23
Dispute resolution 16
Residential development 11
Environmental, waste and renewables 12

Number of UK partners 9
Number of other UK fee-earners 16