Preeminent Scots lawyer Malcolm Mackay wins lifetime achievement award

Employment lawyer Malcolm Mackay has been awarded a lifetime achievement award by WeDo, a support and networking organisation for entrepreneurs.

Mr Mackay received the award at the organisation’s annual conference on May 18 at The Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh.

Mr Mackay is described in Legal 500 and Chambers as “oozing quality”, “a man of vision” with “ a guru-like vision of employment issues” and possessing “an outstanding reputation.” “The God of employment law in Scotland, he makes no song and dance about it.” and “An entrepreneurial legal pioneer.”

He was the first solicitor to be certified as an employment law specialist by the Law Society of Scotland.

He founded Mackay WS in 1988, later becoming Mackay Simon, Scotland’s first niche employment law practice and possibly the first in the UK. The firm rose quickly up the Legal 500 rankings beating large firms to the top. Success led to a large client base and in 2000 in order to offer a broader service to them the firm merged with Maclay, Murray & Spens where he headed the employment pensions & benefits department comprising around 40 employment and pensions lawyers.

Prior to the merger he had founded Law At Work, a specialist employment law company delivering a rounded service for employers comprising a blend of employment law, HR, Insurance and risk management services, which was to shake traditional law practices by removing hourly billing.

In January 2011, having been feeling unwell for some time, Mr Mackay fell ill and was eventually diagnosed with a very rare form of vasculitis. An almost fatal illness, he was treated just in time but was immobilised and unable to walk or work for a lengthy period.

Whilst convalescing, he looked at gaps in the legal market in Scotland and came up with the idea of enabling high street law firms to deliver specialist employment law services. He subsequently launched United Employment Lawyers with his wife Amanda, knowing that this business would enable him to work within his physical limitations.

Following his illness, showing as much tenacity as he has in business, Mr Mackay progressed from a wheelchair, to a splint, to crutches, to sticks and now walks unaided.

He considers his biggest achievement to be having brought on and developed so many young employment lawyers.

He said: “As a lawyer I am particularly proud and humbled to receive this award from a community of genuine entrepreneurs. For many years I have been keen to encourage entrepreneurial thinking and activity among fellow employment lawyers in anticipation of the major changes that were inevitably going to hit the legal profession and are now very much here.

“The traditional law firm model has many advantages but it neither encourages nor sits well with an entrepreneurial way of thinking. It would be good to see an entrepreneurial approach being encouraged in the way lawyers are educated, trained, and rewarded.”