The Scottish market is both fragmented and polarised, with an increasingly small number of dominant players and hundreds of small high street practices. Change has been rapid. Scotland’s legal market is unrecognisable from two decades ago, having undergone major consolidation between 2012 and 2017 when three of the traditional ‘Big Four’ Scottish firms were taken over by English ones. Since then, there has been plenty more activity.
Anglo-Scottish mergers have been fewer in number, but that has not stopped the flow of English firms going north to open offices through lateral hirings. Some of the remaining Scottish independent firms have thrived, while others are finding growth hard.
This Signal report looks at the market in Scotland as a whole, covering key locations and sectors and the challenges and opportunities of doing business in the country. Read the full report here.
