HARPER MACLEOD - Key Persons
Aiden is a Trainee Solicitor in the firm's Corporate, Commercial & Regulatory team. He has experience in working with family owned and owner managed businesses in relation to a variety of corporate matters including acquisitions, disposals, group reorganisations, reductions of share capital and share buybacks.
Prior to joining the firm, he completed his LLB and Diploma in Professional Practice at the University of Glasgow.
Alex is a Solicitor in our Private Client team. He has experience in a range of private client matters, including Trust administration, the preparation of Wills, succession planning, administration of estates and adults with incapacity matters including powers of attorney and guardianships.
Prior to joining the firm, he completed his LLB and Diploma in Professional Practice at the University of Glasgow.
Alexander is a Solicitor in our Renewable Energy team. He specialises in all land and property related matters, including purchases, sales, leasing work for landlords and tenants, option agreements, preparing title reports, servitudes, security work and title rectifications.
Alexis is a commercial property lawyer with almost 20 years' experience in all aspects of commercial property work. She is experienced in commercial leasing (acting for both landlord and tenant) and has been responsible for the day-to-day asset management of many large assets such as shopping centres and industrial estates for a number of years. She is also responsible for acquisitions and sales and has been involved in a number of high-profile developments from the site assembly phase through to the leasing and end disposal. She also has experience of complex development and forward funding agreements.
Alexis has acted for a wide range of clients, from small owner-managed businesses up to large multi-national organisations.
Alexis has experience in acting as property support in large corporate and banking transactions and is a capable project manager ensuring that even large portfolios are dealt with in a straightforward fashion. Alexis has also been involved in a number of insolvency matters including providing advice on tenant insolvency and acting for the bank or administrators in the ultimate disposal of the distressed assets.
She has a wealth of experience across the transport, retail, leisure (including licensed premises), health/ care, student accommodation/co-living and office sectors and often acts in cross-border transactions.
Alexis is dual-qualified in Scotland as well as in England and Wales.
Alison is a Trainee Solicitor in our Banking & Finance team.
Prior to joining Harper Macleod, Alison completed her Graduate LLB at the University of Edinburgh and Diploma in Professional Legal Practice at the University of Glasgow.
In addition to law, Alison previously studied Fine Art at Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen.
Alison is a solicitor in our Elgin private client team, having completed her traineeship in Glasgow.
After completing her first degree, a MA (Hons) in History, she went on to study Law and has chosen to specialise in wills, trusts and estates.
Alison is a finalist for the 2024 Trainee Solicitor of Year with The Scottish Professional Awards, the winner of which is announced later in 2024.
Outside of work, Alison teaches and performs highland dancing and is also a drummer in her local pipe band.
Amber specialises in taxation for individuals, Trusts and Estates, and has worked within the tax profession for 20 years advising on Income Tax, Capital Gains tax and Inheritance Tax. She offers both an advisory service, providing advice to clients who find themselves in a position to require taxation help, and compliance service helping clients with their tax returns, both self-assessment and otherwise, ensuring successful navigation of current tax legislation and HMRC guidelines.
Her client base covers a full spectrum, from children, young adults and non-taxpayers to high net worth individuals, and pensioners together with those unable to manage their own affairs. She also deals with the taxation aspects of trusts and estates, ensuring the Trustees and Executors comply with the reporting requirements to both HMRC and their beneficiaries. She provides a full Capital Gains Tax service to those individuals and Trusts who require this service, and supports our residential property clients with their property related taxation issues.
Amy is a partner in our Personal Injury & Reparation team. She is an experienced Personal Injury solicitor and delivers advice and assistance to insurer and individual clients in relation to pursuer and defender cases. Amy has significant experience in relation to serious injury cases, wrongful death cases, medical negligence cases, credit hire and fraudulent claims.
She carries out regular appearance work in relation to actions raised in Sheriff Courts throughout Scotland, including the All Scotland Personal Injury Court and the Court of Session. Amy has also appeared frequently before Sheriff Principals in relation to Appeal cases.
Amy provides frequent training sessions to clients and third-party organisations and provides opinions on prospects of success and valuations for pre-litigation and post-litigation cases. Amy runs our internal technical liability clinic for solicitors and paralegals in order to ensure we obtain a favourable, fair and just outcome for clients.
Amy specialises in advising family owned and owner-managed businesses throughout Scotland in relation to a variety of corporate and commercial work, including mergers, acquisitions and disposals, business and owner succession planning, and director, shareholder and partnership matters.
Amy acts as lead legal adviser on transactions, where she maintains the client relationship, and project manages a multi-disciplinary team (including our Corporate, Employment, Property, Intellectual Property, Banking and Dispute Resolution teams, together with the client's external financial and tax advisers) to meet transaction deadlines. Recent examples of Amy's experience include:
lead adviser to a private equity backed dental acquirer based in England, in relation to the acquisition by the client of multiple dental practices across Scotland. Amy's relationship with this client has proven to be a key factor in this consolidator appointing Harper Macleod as its sole legal adviser on its acquisitions in Scotland;
lead adviser to a family owned group of companies within the waste management sector on all corporate and commercial matters; and
lead adviser to a variety of businesses in the marine economy, fintech, financial services and transport and logistics industries on investment, complex succession planning and transfer of ownership matters.
In addition to managing her legal workload, Amy has initiated and developed a successful business development initiative, and so also plays an important role in our Corporate team in terms of business generation.
Amy is fluent in Spanish, and will assist colleagues acting on behalf of Spanish speaking clients as and when required.
Amy was awarded "Highly Commended" in the Rising Star of the Year category at the Scottish Legal Awards 2019 and she is recommended in Corporate & Commercial by independent legal directory, The Legal 500.
Amy assists with the management and co-ordination of the HM Connect network and, in particular, is responsible for the operation and development of the network in the East of Scotland. Amy also works alongside Head of International, Gordon Hollerin, to globally manage our strong relationships with our best friend law firms around the world. In addition, Amy coordinates the Denmark country desk, part of Harper Macleod's international offering.
Andrea is an experienced Senior Associate working in our Residential Property team based in Inverness. Andrea primarily advises clients on a range of residential conveyancing matters including purchases and sales, remortgages, title transfers, variations of securities and discharges. Andrea is also available to provide advice and guidance on a variety of other property matters including, voluntary registrations, boundary disputes and the resolution of title defects.
Harper Macleod's roots go back to 1988, when Lorne Crerar, later to become Professor Lorne Crerar CBE and chairman of the firm, led a small group, with another partner, and converted the nascent business division of a Glasgow court firm into a separate commercial practice. Professor Crerar was warned by stalwarts of the profession that building a commercial law firm of scale from scratch just couldn't be done, a challenge that was readily taken up. Harpers, as the legal startup was known, subsequently took over a niche corporate firm called Macleods to become Harper Macleod, and the rest is history.
In 2002, Martin Darroch joined the firm as Finance Director and in 2006 became the first-ever non-lawyer Chief Executive of a Scottish law firm. The firm's growth was meteoric, expanding its footprint all over Scotland as it quickly became one of the country's leading firms and a pioneer in changing the way legal partnerships operated. From the start, Harper Macleod was a business that just happened to be a law firm.