Burges Salmon LLP — Scotland

AJ Venter

AJ is a partner in the Corporate and M&A team. His practice covers a broad range of UK and cross-border corporate transactions, including private M&A, public takeovers, IPOs, equity fundraisings, joint ventures, complex corporate reorganisations and restructurings and general corporate advisory matters. He acts for a number of quoted and private companies, financial intermediaries and other clients and advises clients across several sectors with a particular focus on financial services. · Corporate / M&A

Claire Withers

Claire is a senior associate specialising in equity incentive arrangements, reward structures and corporate tax. She advises on employee and management incentive arrangements, including design, implementation and any transaction-related implications. She also advises on a broad range of transactional and advisory tax matters, with particular emphasis on real estate, mergers and acquisitions and employment related tax. Claire is a chartered tax adviser and a member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, Association of Tax Technicians and Share Plan Lawyers Group. She sits on the committee of the Edinburgh branch of Women in Tax. · Tax

Danny Lee

Danny is a partner in the firm’s corporate finance team, having joined Burges Salmon’s new Scottish office in 2019. Danny specialises in corporate finance and company law, including M&A, joint ventures, private equity and restructurings. Danny covers a range of sectors, but with a particular focus on the energy sector (notably renewables), food and drink, technology and life sciences/pharma sectors. Recent experience includes: advising Panoramic Growth Equity on its investment in Big Drop Brewing Company; advising Fern Fibre Limited and Octopus Investments on the acquisition of internet service provider M12 Solutions and the Giganet brand together with a £250m funding package; advising Riverstone on the sale of Forsa Energy’s distributed flexible power generation platform to Tiger Infrastructure Partners; advising Calcivis on its equity investment by SIB and Archangels; advising Genus plc on its strategic investment in genetics improvement consultancy, Xelect. · Corporate / M&A

Eilidh Wood

Eilidh is a senior associate in the firm’s Employment team, based in Edinburgh, having joined the firm in 2021. She advises on both contentious and non-contentious employment law issues covering the full lifecycle of the employment relationship, as well as regularly providing employment expertise in connection with corporate and real estate transactions and matters relating to TUPE. She has particular experience in conducting employment tribunal litigation in both Scotland and England, including in relation to complex discrimination and whistle blowing claims, as well as equal pay claims. Eilidh’s experience includes conducting advocacy at all stages of Tribunal proceedings. · Employment

Fay Lamb

Fay is an experienced senior associate in the Real Estate team, based in the firm’s Edinburgh office. She acts in broad a range of real estate matters, including acquisitions and disposals, landlord and tenant, development and portfolio financing. Fay is qualified to practice in Scotland. · Real Estate

Gregor Hayworth

Gregor has specialised in advising and representing energy market participants in respect of dispute avoidance and dispute resolution for around 10 years, and is a member of the leadership team for our UK-wide energy disputes practice. He advises on major domestic and international energy projects, both onshore and offshore, with a focus on renewable energy projects. Gregor has a keen interest in risk advisory work, advising clients on dispute avoidance during the life-cycle of major projects. He has significant experience in the Scottish Courts, and in the High Court in England & Wales. He has also represented clients in arbitration, including ad hoc, ICC, LCIA and LMAA proceedings, and in adjudication, expert determination and mediation. Gregor also teaches at the University of Edinburgh Law School. · Energy (Excluding Oil & Gas)

Helen Woodford

Helen joined the Burges Salmon's Pensions and Lifetime Savings team in 2023, advising clients across the UK from the firm’s Edinburgh office and her Northumberland home base. She has specialised in pensions law since qualification over two decades ago. Helen recognises pensions issues are complex and constantly evolving, she strives to advise her clients with clarity, in a manner tailored to their specific situation and requirements. Clients with whom Helen has built longstanding relationships range from employers and pension trustee boards of global corporations with large ongoing defined benefit pension schemes to smaller entities with open or closed defined benefit arrangements and defined contribution occupational schemes or insurer provided pension plans. Helen’s client base has straddled many sectors including energy, manufacturing, retail and transport. She has also acted for many pension trustee boards and employers operating within the charity and not-for-profit sector. She is a full member of the Association of Pensions Lawyers and a member of the Pensions Ombudsman’s Legal Forum. · Pensions

Jacqueline Cook

Jacqueline acts for a wide range of clients on contentious and non-contentious planning law matters. She has experience in all UK jurisdictions and routinely advises on consenting strategy, statutory and commercial contracts, appeals and judicial review. Her work includes energy infrastructure, residential and commercial development, landmark retail, leisure and mixed-use developments and specialist aspects of planning, such as heritage assets and environmental impact assessment. Jacqueline is ranked in Chambers and the Legal 500 directories. She is Vice-Chair of the Scottish Property Federation’s Planning & Development Committee (part of the British Property Federation) and regularly contributes to “Scottish Planning & Environmental Law” (the planning law journal of record in Scotland). · Planning & Environment

Jennifer Mellor

Jennifer is a director in the funds and financial regulation team. She has worked both in private practice and in-house at financial institutions, including as Head of Legal. She has considerable experience advising clients across the funds and financial services sector, including asset managers, financial institutions, investment funds, pension schemes (both public and private sector) and family offices. Jennifer specialises in investment funds, the use of limited partnerships and limited liability partnerships in corporate structures and financial services regulatory work, with a particular focus on private funds. She regularly advises on the establishment and operation of, and investment in, alternative investment funds across different asset classes (including private equity, infrastructure, and forestry) together with the regulatory aspects of such transactions. · Investment Funds

Katie Carter

Katie is a senior associate in the firm’s Corporate and M&A team having joined the firm in 2020. She represents corporate and institutional clients, as well as partnerships and private individuals, across a broad range of transactional real estate services. She has experience in mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, private equity, venture capital and corporate restructuring. Katie has acted for companies, entrepreneurs, investors and management teams across a broad range of industry sectors (locally, nationally and internationally). Katie’s work has had particular focus on life sciences, technology and renewable energy sectors. She also provides advice and support to clients on various corporate and commercial matters including corporate governance, company law and commercial contracts. She has undertaken a two year secondment at SIMEC Atlantis Energy (SAE), a leading sustainable energy company, during which time she was the primary legal advisor for the SAE group. · Corporate / M&A

Katie Russell

Katie is an experienced advisor in UK employment law, with over 15 years’ specialist experience. Acting primarily for employers, Katie advises on all areas of employment law, including discrimination, whistleblowing, restructuring and redundancy, corporate transactions, TUPE, and Employment Tribunal and High Court/Court of Session litigation. Katie has particular experience of advising businesses in the financial sector and experience in acting as an independent appeals officer. Accredited Specialist in Employment Law (Law Society of Scotland). Publications Frequent contributor to various HR and employment law publications including Scottish Business Insider and HR Director magazine. Sits on the Employment Law Policy Committee of the Law Society of Scotland. Speaker on family friendly rights training module for Employment Lawyers Association introductory course for Newly Qualified employment lawyers. · Employment

Kelly Beattie

Kelly has significant experience of advising both employers and trustees on the day-to-day aspects of a wide range of pension matters and larger scheme projects including benefit restructuring exercises and liability management exercises, including buy-ins and buy-outs. She has advised both smaller schemes and large, billion-pound schemes in various sectors on pensions and pensions tax legislation as well as drafting scheme documentation and supporting clients on corporate restructurings. She also advises on public and third sector pension arrangements, and has extensive experience of advising on public sector outsourcing and insourcing, and staff rationalisation projects for a variety of clients including local authorities, NHS trusts, contractors and academies. Kelly is a member of the Association of Pension Lawyers and sits on the APL Public Sector Sub-committee and the North East APL Sub-committee. · Pensions

Magnus Miller

Magnus leads the Dispute Resolution team in Scotland. He is an experienced litigator, with a practice that covers all dispute forums from the Court of Session, Sheriff Courts, arbitrations, mediations and other forms of alternative dispute resolution. Magnus specialises in commercial disputes, real estate disputes, energy disputes, procurement challenges and insolvency. He acts for companies of all sizes in matters relating to contractual or shareholder disputes. He acts for commercial landlords and tenants on a range of issues from dilapidations to building safety. Additionally, he advises energy companies on a range of energy and real estate related disputes. His expertise also extends to insolvency, professional negligence, regulatory matters and judicial review. Magnus is a Writer to His Majesty’s Signet. He is on the Committee of the Property Litigation Association and is a Notary Public. · Dispute Resolution

Malcolm Donald

Malcolm is a partner in the Corporate and M&A team, and is a member of the Energy & Utilities team. With over 20 years’ experience in both corporate and energy law, he advises clients across a range of industry sectors with particular expertise in the energy industry. He provides advice to clients on all aspects of corporate and energy law, including M&A/transactional work, private equity transactions, joint venture arrangements, energy project developments and corporate structuring. He is also the corporate lead in the firm’s ESG team, advising on the corporate ESG disclosure requirements applicable to UK businesses. · Corporate / M&A

Matthew Bruce

Matthew is a senior associate in our Built Environment team working in all aspects of commercial real estate, including leasing (landlord and tenant), development, investment acquisitions and disposals and secured lending. He has a particular focus on the leisure and retail sectors, acting for a variety of clients such as UK wide hotel and hospitality operators and large retailers. His experience in development work includes all aspects of site acquisition and assembly, site acquisition financing and subsequent development, as well as negotiating agreements for lease, sale agreements and the refinancing/sale of the completed and let development. Matthew also works closely with firms south of the border on the Scots law aspects of cross border portfolio. · Real Estate

Niall Mackle

Niall is a senior associate in the Corporate Finance team, based in the firm’s Edinburgh office, who specialises in mergers and acquisitions, equity investments, corporate structuring and commercial contracts. He has advised clients in a broad range of sectors including technology, renewable energy, hospitality and food and drink. Within the renewable energy sector, Niall has advised on transactions involving onshore and offshore wind, solar, hydro and battery storage. Niall’s work on equity investments has included advising start-up and scale-up companies throughout their whole life cycle, from incorporation and seed investment, through each of their fundraising rounds and on their eventual exits. Niall also regularly advises VC firms and PE funds on their investment activity into UK high growth companies. He has undertaken secondments to BayWa r.e. UK, a UK wind energy developer, and William Grant & Sons, a global drinks company, and was ranked as a Leading Associate in Legal 500 2026. · Corporate / M&A

Nigel Watson

Nigel heads the firm’s Share Plans and Incentives practice. With over 20 years’ experience, he specialises in employee share plans and incentives, advising both listed and unlisted companies on the design, operation and implementation of reward structures and tax efficient remuneration. He also advises companies and management teams on the share plan aspects of M&A transactions. Nigel is a member of the Share Plan Lawyers Group. · Share Plans & Incentives

Robert Forman

Robert is a partner with the firm, heading up the delivery of Scottish Real Estate legal services to a variety of developers, funders, retailers, investors and private individuals on commercial property acquisitions, disposals, leasing, development and secured lending (including cross border/international deals with a Scottish element). · Real Estate

Stuart McMillan

Stuart is a finance lawyer, based in the firm's Edinburgh office. He is dual qualified in Scotland and in England and Wales and has extensive experience working for funders, sponsors and public authorities on project and development finance deals in the UK and overseas. Stuart has acted on the introduction of some of the most innovative financing models in the UK market including the 'aggregator' and 'bank/bond hybrid' models. Stuart also has extensive experience in real estate finance and asset-based lending matters. · Banking & Finance