Scotland has a phenomenal legal history and track record in law.
With solicitors, advocates, solicitor-advocates and paralegals, there is a huge range of capabilities founded on our educational background.
When a new stream of work such as legal process outsourcing or in-sourcing (there are lots of different terms for it) appear, then of course Scotland should be well placed to carry out some of that activity.
We want to see growth in all legal activity in Scotland. We're very ambitious for our own members, which is why we have done a lot of work in promoting Scotland as a jurisdiction outside of our market, letting people know that they can chose a Scottish firm to carry out all sorts of activity.
The type of business structure Ashurst represents does not currently exist in Scotland and is not geared towards the Scottish market. We are encouraged to see it, not because we think it will create large volumes of jobs, but because it will create opportunities for law graduates with whom the legal profession in Scotland are not currently able to engage.
That's why we warmly welcome Ashurst's arrival. We understand other firms getting anxious about whether they should get grant funding, but that is for the Government to assess, on the basis of whether there is significant displacement of other jobs. You don't get grant funding if you are just moving work around Scotland, so I assume that they looked deeply at this case and decided that jobs were not being displaced from elsewhere in Scotland.
Legal process outsourcing is a growing sector and Scottish firms must prepare for it anyway. It's a case of: "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." Some of our firms are addressing this already and dealing with it by thinking of their own strategy rather than getting hot and bothered about the arrival of Ashurst.
I have said to the Scottish Government that they should look at the kind of assistance available to firms outside Scotland and make it available to firms inside Scotland if they can demonstrate significant growth in employment numbers.
What may make Scottish firms anxious is the idea of London firms recruiting Scottish graduates and driving up salaries over time. But it's certainly not the Law Society's job to try to artificially constrain graduates and it's certainly not our ambition to hold back the salaries of Scottish solicitors - quite the opposite, in fact. Legal analytics is a worthy career path and it is right that they get properly remunerated.
While I understand that competitive pressure has grown in the Scottish market, the fact is we now have vastly more law graduates each year than we have roles for.
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