Ergo Law tackles gender barriers to mark a successful first year

Ergo Law, a boutique law firm specialising exclusively in employment law and providing advice to both employer and employee clients, launched by two Edinburgh lawyers, Cathy Donald and Emma Reid, is poised to celebrate a successful first year in business.

Cathy and Emma report that their flexible and progressive business model seems to be working with over 75 client instructions received since their launch at the beginning of the year.

Last December, the Law Society of Scotland reported that, for the first time, the number of women practising as solicitors in Scotland exceeded men, but that women remain under-represented at senior levels, particularly in private firms.

With several years of experience between them at various Edinburgh firms, partners Cathy and Emma, both employment solicitors, decided it was time to tackle gender-based barriers in the profession directly and go it alone.

Emma said: “During our careers with various law firms, both large and small, we’ve always thought there must be another way of doing things especially in the employment law sector.

“The type of advice we provide is often centred around very human problems with very human emotions. When people come to us with problems about their work, whether it’s their own business or a job, we offer them advice that is compassionate and personable rather than corporate in nature.”

Cathy and Emma, both with families, hear many examples of the barriers that women experience in all industries in furthering their career.

Unlike more traditional models, Ergo Law distinguishes itself from many other law firms who practice employment law by focussing purely on this specialist area of law.

Emma continued: “We are building our law firm from the ground up and we get to decide how it looks, feels and works. We get to say with honesty, ‘we know how it feels to run a business’ as we are on that journey too.

“It’s important to us that our law firm is the kind of firm we would turn to ourselves for advice and support if we ever needed it, as well as being a wonderful place to work!”