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Scotland

Award winning legal services in Scotland

As Scotland’s Law Firm of the Year 2019, CMS advises national and international businesses to consolidate or expand, reinforce their defenses and seek new opportunities.  

Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow based lawyers are firmly embedded in their local markets and have the resources and infrastructure of a global organisation behind them.  With over 400 people here, we are serious about Scotland.

We have an exceptionally strong focus on national businesses that include start-ups, government bodies, manufacturers and investors.  We also work with some of the largest conglomerates operating around the globe.  Clients often tell us that our genuine ability to assemble the right teams, wherever they are located, sets us apart from other firms.  The expertise of over 4800 lawyers spread across 75 cities can be mobilised quickly to create the best team for every situation.

And we are clear that our business is a people business. We have a culture of authenticity and inclusivity, encouraging everyone to be 100% themselves.

CMS Scotland is a Times Top 50 Employer for Women and has consistent top tier rankings in our key specialisms such as Corporate/Commercial/M&A, Banking & Finance, Real Estate, IP/IT, Telecoms, Energy/Power/Oil & Gas, Dispute Resolution, Life Sciences/Healthcare, Infrastructure/Projects, Public Sector, Education and Transport.

Proud to support our local communities in Scotland

Commitment to Corporate Responsibility sits at the heart of CMS.  We have an award-winning programme that makes a real impact.  We focus on five areas and are 100% committed to the UN Sustainable Development goals.  Just some of our activities in Scotland include:

  • All three offices are powered 100% by renewable energy
  • Sponsoring and participating in PRIDE in Glasgow and Aberdeen
  • the first law firm to become an Ally firm to the Glass Charter
  • working with the Scottish Ethnic Minorities Lawyers’ Association

Find out how CMS in Scotland can help your business by contacting us now

The following people are available 24/7 to direct your query to the best person, or contact one of our office managing partners:

To Find out more about how we can help your business in Scotland, please feel free to visit us, contact one of our contacts detailed above or just give us a call.

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Re­bound & Re­mod­el: Fu­ture of Work series
Re­gister for our Spot­light Sem­inars
CMS Equip Scot­land
Sup­port­ing start-ups in Scot­land

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31 July 2020
An­nu­al Re­view 2019 – 2020
We are liv­ing in tur­bu­lent times, char­ac­ter­ised by polit­ic­al, cli­mate and health crises. The most acute of these – the COV­ID-19 pan­dem­ic – has clearly shown how in­ter­con­nec­ted our eco­nom­ies are: travel, com­merce and sup­ply chains world­wide have been im­pacted. No in­di­vidu­al or busi­ness has re­mained totally un­af­fected by it.As a glob­al or­gan­isa­tion, with a pres­ence in key busi­ness hubs around the world, we are wit­ness­ing the im­pact of the pan­dem­ic firsthand. Our teams in Asia, Europe, Africa and Lat­in Amer­ica are help­ing cli­ents deal with this un­pre­ced­en­ted situ­ation. Un­fold­ing in dif­fer­ent in­tens­it­ies in dif­fer­ent parts of the world at dif­fer­ent times, our teams are in the for­tu­nate po­s­i­tion of be­ing able to con­nect with and learn from each oth­er. This en­ables us to sup­port our cli­ents in a mean­ing­ful way, listen­ing to and un­der­stand­ing their con­cerns and provid­ing them with busi­ness-rel­ev­ant ad­vice that draws on in­sights from our ex­perts world­wide.In this crisis, we, as a so­ci­ety, are at a cross­roads. What is cer­tain is that for in­di­vidu­als and busi­nesses (ours in­cluded) there will be no ‘back to busi­ness as usu­al’. Things need to (and will) change. How we shape the ‘new nor­mal’ is up to us. In this An­nu­al Re­view, we look at some key de­vel­op­ments that are in­creas­ingly im­pact­ing busi­ness suc­cess. Com­pan­ies need to take these in­to con­sid­er­a­tion when ad­apt­ing their op­er­a­tions to the new busi­ness en­vir­on­ment.The months ahead will be chal­len­ging for us all. Busi­nesses will need to think stra­tegic­ally and po­s­i­tion them­selves for suc­cess in the new nor­mal. We at CMS see it as our task to guide our cli­ents through this chan­ging busi­ness land­scape.Mat­thi­as Licht­blau (Ex­ec­ut­ive Dir­ect­or) Pierre-Sé­bas­tien Thill (Chair­man) Duncan We­st­on (Ex­ec­ut­ive Part­ner) CMS Ex­ec­ut­ive Team
Publication
27 May 2020
CMS Ex­pert Guide to con­sequen­tial loss in the en­ergy sec­tor
Are you look­ing for in­form­a­tion on con­sequen­tial loss in the en­ergy sec­tor? This CMS Ex­pert Guide provides you with everything you need to know.
Expert Guide Energy & Climate Change
08 October 2020
Spot­light Scot­land - The Fu­ture of Re­new­ables
In our second Fu­ture of Re­new­ables we­bin­ar of 2020, a mix of CMS and in­vited speak­ers will look at de­vel­op­ments in the re­new­ables in­dustry in Scot­land over the last six months and what 2021 (and bey­ond) may have in store. In par­tic­u­lar, this ses­sion will
Event Webinar
21 September 2020
MESSI vs. MASSI – Li­onel takes three points be­fore the CJEU
On Thursday 17 Septem­ber 2020 the Court of Justice of the European Uni­on handed down its judg­ment in a trade mark dis­pute dat­ing back to 2011 in­volving Li­onel Messi, the icon­ic FC Bar­celona foot­baller,...
Law-Now Intellectual Property
29 July 2020
CMS En­ergy & Cli­mate Change Glob­al Ex­per­i­ence
With more than 450 en­ergy and cli­mate change law­yers, in­clud­ing over 100 part­ners, the CMS En­ergy and Cli­mate Change prac­tice is one of the largest of its kind in the world. Led from its Lon­don centre of ex­cel­lence, the prac­tice works across 75 of­fices glob­ally.CMS teams now work in every corner of the sec­tor across the globe to help it meet the de­mands of cli­mate change, tech­no­lo­gic­al dis­rup­tion, urb­an­isa­tion in de­vel­op­ing eco­nom­ies, so­cial con­cerns and polit­ic­al agen­das.Be­low you will find some of our ex­per­i­ence across the globe. Please get in touch with our ex­perts in your jur­is­dic­tion.Please also see our Hot Top­ics for the En­ergy Trans­ition pub­lic­a­tion.
Publication
06 April 2020
CMS Ex­pert Guide to COV­ID-19 im­pact on con­struc­tion in­dustry
As the en­tire eco­nomy has been hit hard by the out­break of the COV­ID-19, also the con­struc­tion in­dustry is cur­rently fa­cing dra­mat­ic and dis­rupt­ive chal­lenges re­gard­ing fin­an­cial pres­sure, la­bour short­ages and sup­ply chain is­sues. In or­der to help our cli­ents, we have pro­duced a fre­quently up­dated, com­par­at­ive guide over the im­pact the COV­ID-19 has on the con­struc­tion sec­tor across vari­ous jur­is­dic­tions.
Expert Guide Real Estate
18 September 2020
How will in­valid­ity of the Pri­vacy Shield and new rules for Stand­ard Con­trac­tu­al...
In a re­cent rul­ing, the EU Court of Justice struck down the EU-US Pri­vacy Shield and, though it ruled that stand­ard con­trac­tu­al clauses re­main val­id for trans­fers of per­son­al data out­side the EEA, in­ter­preted...
Law-Now Brexit
29 July 2020
Hot Top­ics for the En­ergy Trans­ition
With more than 450 en­ergy and cli­mate change law­yers, in­clud­ing over 100 part­ners, the CMS En­ergy and Cli­mate Change prac­tice is one of the largest of its kind in the world. Led from its centres of ex­cel­lence such as Lon­don and Ab­er­deen, the prac­tice works across 75 of­fices glob­ally.Our early work in design­ing and im­ple­ment­ing mod­ern en­ergy mar­kets and sub­sequently guid­ing the sec­tor in the push to de­car­bon­isa­tion means CMS is not only a trans­ac­tion­al or pro­ject ad­viser to the sec­tor, but uniquely placed to help shape its present and fu­ture. We can help by giv­ing you our ad­vice and com­pre­hens­ive know­ledge on the top­ics lis­ted be­low.Please also see our CMS En­ergy Glob­al Ex­per­i­ence pub­lic­a­tion.
Publication
31 March 2020
CMS Ex­pert Guide to COV­ID-19 im­pact on lease agree­ments
COV­ID-19 is dom­in­at­ing the glob­al news and af­fect­ing all areas of busi­ness life. For both land­lords and ten­ants, the ques­tion arises as to the im­pact of the COV­ID-19 pan­dem­ic on their lease re­la­tion­ships. In this guide you will find a use­ful over­view of the im­pact COV­ID-19 has on leases across vari­ous jur­is­dic­tions. Please note that this com­par­at­ive ana­lys­is is based on our cur­rent eval­u­ation and is a sub­ject to fur­ther up­dates and amend­ments.
Expert Guide Real Estate
17 September 2020
New Scot­tish class ac­tion pro­ced­ure - how will the re­gime work? Part 2: ...
A new mech­an­ism for group pro­ceed­ings came in­to ef­fect in Scot­land on 31 Ju­ly 2020 (see the rules here). We have already com­men­ted on the cer­ti­fic­a­tion stage of the new re­gime (see here). In this short...
Law-Now Class Actions
20 July 2020
Ker­nel: Sum­mer 2020
Wel­come to the latest edi­tion of Ker­nel, our Scot­land food and drink bul­let­in. In Ker­nel, we ex­am­ine cur­rent leg­al is­sues af­fect­ing the Scot­tish food and drink in­dustry and provide bites­ize art­icles on key de­vel­op­ments.
Guide Consumer Products
27 March 2020
CMS Ex­pert Guide to force ma­jeure
Expert Guide Commercial
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