International law firm CMS has completed its merger with Scots practice Dundas and Wilson (D&W).
This weekend, D&W’s four Aberdeen-based partners move into CMS’s Queen’s Road offices.
CMS’s Stephen Millar, practice group manager for energy, projects and construction, will now also be an executive partner for Scotland of the merged firm.
He said the attraction for CMS to D&W, which dates to 1759, was its strength in financial services, energy public sector and its oil and gas experience.
Mr Millar said: “Scotland has two sectors of real international standing, the energy sector and financial services.
“We have done extremely well in the oil and gas sector which is a subset of the energy piece. But there is more to energy on the whole electricity side, which CMS is known for globally. We did fine in Scotland but Dundas and Wilson had a great practice in that area.
“On the financial services side, we did good work in that area but D&W does extremely well in that area.”
D&W, which was thought to have been seeking a merger with a larger firm ahead of the tie-up with CMS, made 40 support staff redundant ahead of the merger completing, while 20 jobs were shed at CMS and its outsourcing suppliers .
Some 69 former Dundas and Wilson partners have become partners in CMS which has 212 UK partners.The merger widens the international firm’s exposure to Scotland and Mr Miller said it is not put off by the prospect of the referendum for independence to be held in September.
“There’s always change isn’t there?” said Mr Miller. “That’s not just independence. There’s change in regulation, and various things happening. It is probably just another piece of change.
“The key thing is there’s a lot of very important corporations and government here in Scotland that need good legal advice and we want to be set up to give them the best advice possible.
“There’s also the fact there are lots of great lawyers in Scotland. The services they provide can be exported to England and internationally. We want to be doing even more work here in Scotland.”