LINDA TSANG EXAMINES THE DEVELOPMENT OF CROSS-BORDER AND INTERNATIONAL PRACTICES FROM EDINBURGH AND GLASGOWFrom this month, Scotland will be a different place, where things will be done differently.

With the official opening of the Scottish Parliament on 1 July, one thing is certain, devolution means that lawyers will never be busier in Scotland -- keeping up with the rush of law reform in unbillable hours, and advising clients about how it affects them when doing legal business in billable time.Scottish lawyers are known not only for their legal expertise, but also for their business nous -- although the recent sales of long-established institutions -- such as Scottish Amicable to the Prudential and more recently, Scottish Widows to Lloyds TSB -- can be seen as the management going south.

However, as one commercial partner of a leading Scottish firm, says: 'These are not necessarily signs that the Crown jewels are going south of the border'.

He adds that despite those sales, a significant amount of legal work stays north of the border.Generally, the leading commercial firms are retaining their position as the first stop for the major corporate players in Scotland.

And Dundas & Wilson's association with accountancy giant Arthur Andersen in 1997 has been seen as an inevitable move for a major legal player looking for markets further afield than Scotland.Dundas & Wilson managing partner, Chris Campbell, who is also in charge of the Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds offices of Garretts, says that the association has been justified.

He says: 'We have seen a lot of international work come through the Andersen's network, such as the recent acquisition by Stagecoach in Italy.

The aim is to develop that part of the business more and more, either by providing advice directly or as project managers'.Mr Campbell stresses that each member of the network is involved in developing a common approach to international business: two Dundas & Wilson partners are leading the development of cross-border practice in property and banking and finance across the whole network.

He says: 'It is not just a federation of international practices -- it is one quality law firm'.Dundas & Wilson is the largest firm in Scotland, but it is not alone in looking to expand its practice beyond the border.

McGrigor Donald is another major player in Scotland which is on the move.

As its Gl asgow managing partner, Alison Newton, says: 'McGrigors is an independent firm, and it will stay independent.

The headquarters are in Scotland, and that is not going to change.

But we are also concentrating on developing and expanding the London and Edinburgh offices'.

More significantly, the firm is planning to open an office in Belfast.

'The firm has been involved in significant work from both Northern Irish and Dublin-based clients, and has also been appointed to a number of PFI (or what are now called public-private partnerships) in Belfast -- we believe that there is an opportunity to use our expertise there.' The firm is also reviewing its membership of Globalaw, which gives it access to US firms, and retains its shared office in Brussels.The one Scottish firm which has a larger presence in Brussels is Maclay Murray & Spens which has had its own office there since 1982.

The firm has always had a wider outlook -- as Bruce Patrick, head of the firm's Scottish parliamentary group, comments: 'There is undoubtedly the whole pizzazz of the new Scottish Parliament and that has raised the profile of Scottish law.

There are different dynamics now, and there is less likelihood of complaints of the law being out-of-date on a UK-wide perspective.'Being at the nerve centre of what is happening in Europe and with the Scottish Parliament -- there is now an opportunity to brand Scotland'.Within Scotland, there has been a more recent trend to expand across the east-west axis.

The soon-to-be-announced merger of Glasgow firm Bishop and Robertson Chalmers and Edinburgh firm Alex Morison is likely to put a new firm in the top five in fee earner numbers.

Maclays was the first to open an office in Edinburgh in 1973, and now every major legal player has moved to have bases in both cities.Shepherd & Wedderburn opened an office in Glasgow in 1997.

Chief executive Paul Hally admits that 'with competition increasing, to retain clients, you have to be more proximate than before, you have to move ahead of expectations'.Shepherd & Wedderburn has also been competing beyond the borders, it and McGrigors are the only two Scottish firms on the Ministry of Defence panel, advising on projects south of the border.

Mr Hally also points out that partners from the firm were also part of the Scottish trade delegation which recently went to South Africa, and have tendered for work there.And despite the differences between the Scottish and English legal systems, Mr Hally says that there are opportunities to compete beyond the borders, in areas other than PFI work or the equivalent.

In the areas of pensions, employment and energy, his firm has been pitching against its counterparts south of the border.

He says: 'What every organisation is looking at is its strengths and whether they are exportable'.And it is not just the Scottish firms that are exporting their skills.

In May 1998, Vincent Connor left McGrigors to set up the Glasgow office of London firm Masons, and was later joined by Alastair Morrison from Dundas & Wilson, both well-regarded construction specialists, and the firm will soon have 15 lawyers.

Mr Connor says that Masons was the right choice for himself and Mr Morrison because of its international reputation in construction, and the strategy has always been to develop the three core areas of construction, IT and PFI work.

He adds: 'Although the firm is essentially a niche practice, it is acting for a number of UK and international contractors.

Having done PFI work in Scotland, we also do international work from the Scottish office -- that was all part of the strategy anyway.

In the past, a London City firm has tended to get a Scottish firm on board to 'kilt' the project by giving the Scottish advice that is needed, now it is just as common for Masons, or a Scottish firm, to run the project from Scotland, and pull in the others'.The consensus is that in the future, lawyers must have the ability to spread across jurisdictions, pan-UK and globally, but as Dundas & Wilson's Mr Campbell stresses: 'We would not desert our Scottish roots, Scotland is by far the biggest part of our business, but we also have ambitious people who want to work on a larger scale.

From both the clients' perspective and their advisers, everyone is having to look internationally'.ALISON CLARK TALKS TO THE SCOTTISH SOLICITORS WHO HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN THE PUBLIC DEFENDERS PILOT ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCES OF THE SCHEMEThe mounting cost of the criminal legal aid budget in Scotland was, without doubt, the driving force behind the government's decision to set upa new, and radically different criminal defence system in October 1998.

The Public Defence Solicitors Office (PDSO) now has five years to prove its worth in a pilot project being scrutinised by criminal solicitors just about everywhere in the UK.Alistair Watson, the director of the new organisation argues that: 'The setting up of the PDSO was not just about saving money, although the high cost of criminal legal aid in Scotland certainly caused minds to be focused'.

According to his calculations, costs had trebled in the ten years to 1997, working out at about £17 per head for taxpayers.

This was half as expensive again as England and Wales.

He says that the question was not whether there should be change, but what form that change should take.

The end result was the PDSO, a small-scale, independent operation employing six solicitors including Mr Watson, all of whom are based in Edinburgh.

Under the terms of the five-year pilot, the team can only undertake summary cases in the city's sheriff and district (non-jury) courts.

Business is generated in one of two ways.

The first, which has proved the most controversial, obliges defendants with a birthday in January or February to be represented by the PDSO if they want summary legal aid.

The second is from self-referring clients.

This seemingly arbitrary referral system exists to provide the researchers -- who are based at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and will be reporting back on the scheme to the Scottish Parliament in three years -- with a random cross-section of the population.Baroness Kennedy, presenting Channel 4's Powerhouse, recently called the obligatory referral scheme 'justice by star sign'.

The Scottish Law Society, which is implacably opposed to the whole principle of the public defence solicitor, reserves particular criticism for the obligatory referral scheme.Michael Scanlan, the Society's president, says: 'It results in restricted freedom of choice and restricted access to justice'.

He does not believe that costs for legal aid in Scotland are out of control, and believes that the government has: 'jumped in at the deep end before waiting to see the effect of other changes'.Rodney Warren, vice-chairman of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association in England and Wales and the principal of Rodney Warren & Co, is another sceptic.

He visited the pilot earlier in the year, but was still unconvinced at the end of the trip of the need for the state to assume the role of defender, which he believes is driven by issues of cost, rather than quality.Mr Watson agrees that it is to th e state's advantage to be able to measure the service and identify the budget, but argues that there are other considerations which are equally important.

For instance, the fact that the public defence solicitor has no interest in carrying out unnecessary work.Matthew Nicholson, one of the solicitors recruited to the PDSO from private practice, agrees.

He says: 'The public defender has no incentive to drag out a case, so we get more guilty pleas at an early stage.

In private practice, on the other hand, the motivation has been to drag the case out in order to milk the legal aid system'.This practice may stop with the recent introduction of fixed fees set at £500 per summary case, but Elaine Crawford, another public defence solicitor, argues that fixing a cost to a case gives the PDSO another advantage over lawyers in private practice.

She says: 'We are in a better position to prepare cases properly as we have no financial restrictions.

There is a limit to how much you can do on each case in private practice if you are only getting a fixed fee'.

She says that 'by and large we have had no complaints from clients who are happy as long as they receive a good service'.According to Mr Watson, the public defender can provide a more comprehensive service than the solicitor in private practice.

He says: 'A good client in private practice is one who keeps committing crime.

That is not the motivation for the public defender, and although we are not social workers, we are more aware of the need to address the underlying problems of clients.

We have links with drug rehabilitation groups and every month we have a surgery with an employment training agency, APEX.In that way, the public defender can develop a philosophy, albeit peripheral, concerned with crime reduction and recidivism'.Mr Warren understands the argument, but says that it is nonsense.

He says: 'Lawyers do not have any control over who commits crime, nor do clients think about who is going to represent them when they are carrying out crime'.

He also refutes the argument that solicitors in private practice do not get involved in helping their clients.

'We are just as interested in trying to help clients as the public defender,' he says.

'The defence solicitor who helps his clients gets a reputation for a good quality service and that is what attracts them back'.Whatever the merits of the respective arguments, it is clear that the government is attracted to the idea of public defenders for England and Wales.

The Access to Justice Bill gives the government the power to set up a criminal defence service, and according to a spokesman for the Lord Chancellor's Department, the government will be looking closely at the results of the Scottish pilot.

The spokesman explained that although the Bill also gives enabling powers to the Lord Chancellor to recruit salaried defenders, he has given a commitment that most of the work would still be done by lawyers in private practice.It was this safeguard that secured the support of the Law Society in England and Wales for the idea of a salaried service.David Hartley, the Law Society's head of solicitors' remuneration, explained that as long as client choice was maintained, the Society would not oppose the concept in principle.

Criminal law solicitors, however, may not agree.NEIL ROSE LOOKS AT THE LESSONS WHICH SOLICITORS SOUTH OF THE BORDER HAVE LEARNT FROM PROPERTY SELLING IN SCOTLANDThe news last week that the two groups of solicitors poised to open property centres in Preston and Swansea under the auspices of Solicitors Property C entres Ltd had broken away, has given another boost to the efforts by the other major property selling initiative in the country.The Solicitors Property Shop, based in Newcastle and serving the north east of England, is backed by the highly-successful Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre (ESPC) and is already up and running.

It opened in January with 29 member firms -- stretching from Northumberland to north Yorkshire -- and is currently advertising hundreds of properties in the firms' 46 offices.

In terms of outlets, it claims to have the largest estate agency operation in the north east.

Earlier attempts to set up a property shop in London and the south east failed due to insufficient firms signing up to the idea.The lawyers in the north east are trying to emulate the huge success that ESPC and others in Scotland have had.

Darlington solicitor John Pratt, one of the prime movers behind the shop, says the involvement of ESPC was crucial in giving firms the confidence to become property sellers.

'ESPC's success speaks for itself.

They must be good because they have such a dominance [in Edinburgh].' ESPC has over 90% of its local estate agency market.

The concept is taking off and none of the firms regret going into it, Mr Pratt says.There are around 700 solicitor estate agencies in Scotland, most of whom are members of the eight solicitor property centres (SPCs) around the country -- Aberdeen, south west Scotland, Tayside, Edinburgh, Moray, Perthshire, Highland and Glasgow.

Until recently, for socio-economic reasons, solicitor property sellers have been strongest in eastern Scotland, but the opening of the Glasgow SPC in 1993 has proved a huge success and it now boasts well over a third of the market in the city.Solicitor property selling has been a feature of the Scottish market for decades, helped by the traditional reputation of solicitors as men of business who are more than just legal problem solvers.

Additionally, the Scottish conveyancing system gets solicitors involved earlier in the process than is the norm in England and Wales.In 1997, a report into the SPCs by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission (MMC) estimated that Scottish solicitors had 48% of the entire estate agency market.

The MMC found no evidence of a lack of effective competition in the provision of estate agency or conveyancing services in Scotland.

In a huge victory for Scottish solicitors, the MMC found that even though there was a 'complex monopoly situation' in favour of SPCs, it did not operate against the public interest.

A survey commissioned by the MMC found a high level of consumer satisfaction amongst Scottish consumers with the services provided by solicitors.The SPCs use the display centre model for selling property.

This means that the centre itself does no more than advertise property, leaving all the actual estate agency and conveyancing work, as well as financial services usually, to member law firms.

The only access to the system for a seller is to go to a member firm, which then arranges for the property to be advertised at the centre and in its weekly newspaper.

If buyers who find properties through the centre do not have their own solicitor, they can choose from a list of other centre members to instruct.

The centres encourage members to compete with each other.

Some have their own satellite property shops, while those that do not, often advertise properties in their receptions.

With a computer, solicitors can do from their offices everything the centre does.John O'Donnell, head of the Preston Solicitors Property Group, conten ds that this model is 'fundamentally flawed' for the English market.

Consumers want to be able to get all the services they need from a 'one-stop shop' of conveyancing, estate agency and financial advisers, he says.

In response, Mr Pratt argues that the ESPC model includes a one-stop shop, but in this case, it is in the solicitor's office rather than the centre.

'The fact that we market properties regionally in one centre is neither here nor there,' he says.It is still too early in the north east experiment to know who is right, although the early signs are encouraging, but it certainly works in Edinburgh.

ESPC, which has five branches in and around the city, is easily the largest centre, with 260 members, running a professional and highly commercial operation.

In 1997, annual sales topped £1 billion for the first time, while in April 1999 it had a week where it was selling a property every six minutes on average.

Edinburgh's members receive around £10 million in estate agency commission a year on top of conveyancing and financial services fees.Firms usually become members through a joining fee, ranging from £118 in Tayside to £2,500 in Aberdeen.

The SPCs do allow solicitor property sellers from outside their catchment areas to use their facilities, but this is usually at less preferential rates than members enjoy.

All SPCs operate a rule that non-solicitors may not use their facilities (the direct access rule), while six will not advertise properties that are being marketed jointly by solicitors and non-solicitors (the joint agency rule).

These two rules caused the MMC's investigation.While each SPC has its own way of doing things, they all offer two main ways of advertising property: in a centrally-located showroom and through weekly or monthly property lists which are widely distributed, while some are now using the Internet too.

The SPCs estimate that they get more than 750,000 people through the doors of their showrooms each year.To advertise a property at the SPC, members pay an insertion fee of no more than £200.

In addition to the property advertisements, the SPCs provide: schedules of particulars, which show the selling agent and viewing times; a mailing list, from which potential buyers are sent details of properties which match their requirements; and in some cases, a computer-matching service, which searches available properties for requested locations and features.

The insertion fee also entitles the solicitor-property seller to have the property included in the property list.The proponents of property selling in England and Wales argue that it is the only way solicitors can realistically retain conveyancing work.

Between them, conveyancing fees, estate agency commission and financial services commission can be a profitable exercise, they claim.ESPC chairman George Clark wholeheartedly agrees with this analysis, saying there is 'growing public resistance' to any conveyancing fees whatsoever, however cheap.

Most of the SPCs were originally set up around 30 years ago in response to the growth of non-solicitor estate agents in Scotland and, having successfully stopped them in their tracks, they have gone from strength to strength through a combination of 'imagination and the business acumen of solicitors', he says.

The concept can transfer successfully south of Hadrian's Wall, Mr Clark insists, and the early signs from the north east are bearing this out.

But what takes time is changing public attitudes, he says.For ESPC, moving to England and Wales is an important next step in both developing and keeping its business in what is a highly competitive market.

Mr Clark explains: 'We can't stand still, otherwise the estate agents will look to eat away at our market share'.WILLIAM HOLLIGAN POINTS OUT SOME THINGS WHICH ENGLISH AND WELSH SOLICITORS SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE SCOTLAND ACT, AND ASSESSES ITS LIKELY IMPACTThe relationship between England and Scotland has always been prickly and no where more than in the law.

There is usually a feeling that the English solicitor is vaguely aware that things in Scotland are different but is baffled as to what these differences exist and why there should be any differences at all.The drafters of the Treaties of Union tried to preserve the civilian and separate heritage of Scottish law but they did not allow for the use of Westminster as a law-making sausage machine, nor did they draft the treaties in such a way as to exclude appeals to the House of Lords on civil matters.

The result has been, from the perspective of the purist Scottish lawyer, a series of alien importations such as the doctrine of common employment and a large volume of legislation with 'bolt on' Caledonian bits which sit unhappily with existing principle.Despite living in a global age, there is a move towards retaining local identities.Many view the civilian tradition of Scottish law as overplayed -- sometimes deliberately.

For the client injured at work, or attempting to sue a doctor or challenging the action of government, there may be procedural differences but there are few substantive differences between Scottish and English law.However, the introduction of the Scottish Parliament will lead to a tendency to create local solutions to problems which may not be all that local in principle.

In fashioning the solution there may be a tendency not to follow what has happened in England and Wales but to create new structures.Such a process has its advantages.

For the client with a real and substantive grievance about the state of the law or the act of an administrator, there will arguably be a much better chance of influencing events with a view to changing the law or securing redress.

For one thing there will be much less pressure on parliamentary time, more ministers and more members of the Scottish Parliament (MSP's).

The proportional representation system introduced list MSP's, ie, those without a geographical constituency.

They may be more responsive to specific issues as opposed to concerns of their constituents.

Perhaps English and Welsh solicitors with clients in Scotland will have a greater opportunity to engage with the Parliament than they would do at Westminster.Clearly, the law will change.

However, the Parliament is a subordinate body.

Its powers are limited as are the powers of its ministers.

This is uncharted territory.

Whereas the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is the ultimate court for resolving disputes as to vires, cases may remain in Scotland for determination by the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary.English lawyers will need to be alive to the prospects of challenging Scottish legislation and executive acts in a way which they could never do with the Westminster equivalent.

That will need more than just a knowledge of the Scotland Act, it will also require a feeling for what a court, and particularly a Scottish court, will do.

The Parliament has only begun its work.

It is far too early to have any idea how the difficult issues will be treated and how the division of powers will be reviewed.

Do we read the powers of the Parliament expansively or restrictively?This is as much novel territory for the Scottish lawyer as his English and Welsh counterparts, but not perhaps those in Northern Ireland.

The model of the Scotland Act, granting all power to Edinburgh subject to certain, and it has to be said, major restrictions, is more closely modelled on the Government of Ireland Act 1920 rather than the ill-fated Scotland Act 1978.

So lessons will have to be learned from the experiences of other jurisdictions such as Northern Ireland, Canada and Australia to mention a few.For Scottish lawyers, the Human Rights Act 1998 has had an immediate impact.

Although not in force yet throughout the UK, it will be beyond the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament to act contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights and for the Executive to do likewise.

If the new Parliament spawns a number of human rights challenges to its acts and omissions there may be scope for English and Welsh lawyers to learn from this experience and to use it when the Human Rights Act 1998 comes into force throughout the UK.It is also interesting to note that, unlike Westminster legislation, a court will be able to strike down legislation of the Parliament as being unlawful because it is contrary to Convention rights.A very significant change in the way in which the United Kingdom is governed is taking place.

Unless the people of Scotland want it, the Parliament will not be abolished whatever the (English) doctrine of the sovereignty of Parliament might say.

Whether Scotland is engaged on the road to independence or another one of those pragmatic realignments of the constitution -- which is one of the features of its allegedly unwritten and hybrid constitution -- only time will tell.

It appears that Scottish people are in no hurry to change things yet.

However I hope that the awareness of things being different will grow but that we can still learn from each other and draw on our respective experiences.