BTO Solicitors LLP

Member of Mackrell International

BTO Solicitors LLP - Media & Entertainment

Paul Motion

Partner and Solicitor Advocate Paul is a versatile and highly experienced civil Solicitor Advocate who has used his Rights of Audience continuously and prominently since 1998. He has been qualified 39 years. In 2018 he became the first Accredited Specialist in freedom of information and data protection law, in private practice, in Scotland. Paul is one of the most experienced commercial litigation solicitors practising in Scotland. He qualified in 1984 and so has been practising for 38 years. He has been a solicitor advocate since 1998. He practised in New Zealand between 1990 and 1993 appearing as counsel at many levels including the New Zealand Court of Appeal in 1991. Paul is the current Convener of the Law Society of Scotland’s Extended Civil Rights of Audience training programme. Amongst the vast range of litigation Paul has handled during his long career are included many judicial reviews (two in 2022) and two international arbitrations together with related Court of Session appeals (in 2016/2018 and 2019/2022). Paul has handled many complex company and shareholder disputes. In 2021 he was involved in a multi-jurisdictional £58m shareholder dispute involving Scotland, England, Cyprus, China and the Cayman Islands. Paul is often called upon to carry out emergency litigation and has huge experience in dealing with interdict (injunction) applications as well as “Dawn Raids” (*formerly Anton Piller orders in England). He dealt with an urgent injunction in the High Court Queens Bench Division over Christmas 2021/2022, seeking to restrain the holding of a meeting. He appeared in 2008/9 in the Wishart case which remains the leading Scottish authority on shareholder derivative actions: ALEXANDER MARSHALL WISHART v. CASTLECROFT SECURITIES LIMITED AND OTHERS (scotcourts.gov.uk) Paul is also recognised in Scotland as a leading practitioner in data protection (one of only three Accredited Specialists in private practice in Scotland), social media and reputational law. He is regularly in court on these matters. See CAROL BEYTS AGAINST TRUMP INTERNATIONAL GOLF CLUB SCOTLAND LIMITED (scotcourts.gov.uk); ANTHONY WOOLLEY AND DEBORAH WOOLLEY AGAINST NAHID AKBAR OR AKRAM (scotcourts.gov.uk); and Heather Hiram -v- Alana Mullen 2020scedin23.pdf (scotcourts.gov.uk) He has contributed comment to BBC Radio Scotland and BBC Five Live Drive on these topics, often at short notice. He writes articles for the legal and mainstream media and lectures on his subjects regularly. He has also engaged with Facebook, Twitter, TripAdvisor and US news websites in relation to reputational matters. Paul founded and heads BTO BeCreative, a niche team focused on servicing the legal needs of the Scottish creative industries. He devised and presented seminar/workshops at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to an audience of theatrical agents and managers for the ten years. Paul was instrumental in persuading BTO to set up RGDP LLP in 2019. This is a JV company in which BTO’s partner is ComputerLaw Training. RGDP which provides outsourced Data Protection Officer services to nearly 90 customers. Paul is the Board Chairman of RGDP LLP.

Lynn Richmond

Lynn is accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a Specialist in Intellectual Property and is WS Accredited in Commercial Litigation. She is described by her clients as a versatile and able civil litigator with strong advocacy, negotiating and drafting skills. Her experience covers a variety of legal areas, including intellectual property, technology, data protection, freedom of information and general commercial litigation. Lynn undertakes both contentious and non-contentious intellectual property and technology work, advising clients on all aspects of IP transactions, licensing, protection, enforcement and commercialisation. She has worked on a number of high profile intellectual property disputes, both for and against major international companies. Lynn also advises on data protection compliance, data breaches, claims and subject rights and advises on freedom of information matters for a variety of businesses and organisations in many sectors. Lynn has regularly appeared in the sheriff court at first instance and on appeal, and in contentious matters before the UK trade mark tribunal. She also has significant experience in representing her clients at mediation and arbitration.

Lauren McFarlane

Senior Associate

Deals

Advised Paula O'Brien - Psychic Medium on a very significant contractual dispute and in relation to her social media and website.
Provided London based Printerinks Europe Limited with urgent advice in relation to a BBC “Watchdog” piece due to air a very short time later.
Advised a well known figure in the Scottish Music industry, Martin Metcalfe, on the registration of around 50 tracks with PRS by an organisation whom our client maintains had no right to do so.

Team Services

BTO’s team acts regularly at zero notice for individuals (often high profile) and organisations requiring very urgent reputational advice and immediate action against the traditional press and social media.

The firm has BTO has 13 Solicitor Advocates including Paul Motion who heads the Defamation and Online Reputation Team. As such, the team is well placed to quickly obtain orders extending across Scotland if necessary – usually of paramount importance in defamation cases. This gives our client a cost saving, a one stop shop and an instant response, if necessary, with no middle-man.

Paul is also one of only two Scottish solicitors in private practice to be Law Society Accredited as a Specialist in Data Protection and Freedom of Information law. As data protection issues often arise in reputational cases, this additional skill-set is highly relevant.