Douglas Mill

Morisons. Solicitors from way up north to the Borders picking it up on the BBC website. The Herald. All expressing views. Not quotable views. Views that high street solicitors (and I use that expression proudly, not pejoratively as most big firms do) that our Masters of the Universe were at it again. Going bust that is, with all the loss of credibility that involves for the whole profession.

A quick trip to Tesco for The Herald (sadly a pale shadow of its former glory. The Herald that is, not Tesco), provided an excellent article by the ever-astute Margaret Taylor: ‘Dundee Legal Duo Benefits As Rival Firm Fails’. The explanation for the demise? ‘It is understood that Morisons, which had stopped publishing accounts in 2017/18, had run into financial difficulty after taking on bank debt to finance its move from Queen Street to Exchange Square in 2015’.

Sound familiar? Vanity project? Big plate glass symbol? Ultimately unaffordable ego trip? Been the downfall of a good few over the last decade. Tods were plain unlucky, but the others? After the recession had kicked in? Sympathy? I don’t think so.

Before we look at the outcomes, can I publicly eat my hat. I was asked at a seminar only 10 days ago whether I thought anyone else was going bust or shortly to be taken over by the English and I said, no. Everyone who was touting for a down south solution to their problems had been spoken for. Now, I am emphatically not anti-English (my grandson, Hamish, will grow up with a Cheshire accent), but to use a football analogy (and happily the Buddies won even after losing a goal after 43 seconds), the English firms up here-over 20 now- are not exactly Liverpool, City, Man U or Chelsea. More Crystal Palace, Watford. Possibly even Everton.

And it cannot be good for our legal system to have what I now reckon well over 20 per cent of practising certificates paid for by cheques from down south. But that’s probably another article.

And going bust. There’s been a fair few. But not too few to mention. And the profession hardly mentions them. Despite the reputational damage. We are all too mute. Polite. Cowed? More Scottish legal firms have gone bust in the last 10 years than in the previous century I would reckon. And it’s not been the much-maligned high street. It’s been the big boys. The aforementioned Masters who were schooled to patronise small firms outwith the cities. Well, I exclude all the new pretendy cities – and Dundee.

Why Dundee? Well, only partly because I am genetically 25 per cent Dundonian, but because there was never a whiff of arrogance from their bigger firms. And, a bit ironically, it now turns out that the Tayside powerhouses Thorntons and Blackadders are the lifeboats for Morisons.

Thank heavens for them. Thorntons, in particular, should be up for the RNLI team of the year. Blackadders are on the move. An astute business plan which is predicated on careful organic growth. So all well then?

No. For a start, am I alone in being irritated by the ‘having been placed into pre-packaged administration yesterday’ line? All very condescending. Patronising. There, there small high street solicitor. ‘Pre-packaged’. You wouldn’t understand. It’s technical. All done and dusted. Nothing to see here. Move along now.

Absolutely no. Thorntons and Blackadders are expected to launch a redundancy process once the deals complete. And, actually, who could blame them? It is a normal and business-like practice for firms to seek to benefit from the economies of scale to avoid the fate of those they are taking over. It happened after Thorntons bailed out Pagan Osborne. They took all but one of the partners and 113 staff right away, but about 60 were eventually made redundant.

And that is what happens. The danger is that partners in the doomed firms concentrate on launching their own lifeboats and the plight of the workforce is not prioritised. Indeed, so noxious was the process at a Glasgow firm a few years ago that they reportedly closed without actually ever telling the staff! And I bet they had a website replete with employee values etc. And another hadn’t paid its staff for two months. Dreadful. Loyal staff with mortgages and shoppings to do. Morally reprehensible. Seriously do not know how they can sleep at night. Where’s what my granny used to call the black burning shame? Am I the last dinosaur who believes that for solicitors there is a moral dimension to money?

But does it matter? I will be told, largely by people with no grasp of the history, demographics or size of the profession, that it is a big competitive world out there. Dog eat dog. Survival of the fittest. Every man for himself and all that. Morisons demise is other firms’ opportunity. And yes, all that is true. And yes, all that is fine. If we are selling widgets. If were are in the double glazing business. If we are all supermarkets.

But we are not. We are a collegiate profession. We have joint and several liabilities for each other which should, in fairness be removed if were are truly expected to operate in the shark-infested waters of the brave new world. And we were Men of Business. Or in this day and age, People of Business. Prudent. Solid. Unspectacular but reliable. Will always be about. And now we are not. And the public notice this. Clients notice this. And in the glare of the Roberton Review – and that certainly is another article – having our business ethics questioned is not clever. At all. Solvency testing could be back on the agenda. And who could blame the politicians? Because not all the e-mails I got were from solicitors. Some were from pals. All saying, ‘I see your guys are at it again.’

Douglas Mill