Lateral partner recruiting in Edinburgh

There is no statutory notice period for a member of a Scottish LLP, and none for a partner in a Scottish firm. Regulation 7 of the Limited Liability Partnerships Regulations 2001 sets default rights and duties only where the LLP agreement does not. It came into force on 6 April 2001 and extends to Scotland. It does not say “three months” or “twelve months.” Notice, garden leave, a non-solicit of clients, a non-solicit of staff, and a non-deal clause are whatever the deed says, and they are enforceable only so far as the restraint is no wider than the interest it protects. A start date written into an offer before the deed is read is a date the deed can still move.

While the lawyer is still inside, the default competitive-business rule depends on the vehicle. For an LLP member, if the agreement is silent, regulation 7(9) says a member who carries on a competing business of the same nature without consent must account for the profits. For a partner in a Scottish firm, section 30 of the Partnership Act 1890 says the same thing. Both rules are about competing while still inside. They are not a licence to call the book on the way out, and they are not a post-exit non-compete. Most Edinburgh partner deeds replace the default with a written restraint. The default matters when the deed is silent, and only then.

The Scottish firm itself is a separate person. Section 4(2) of the Partnership Act 1890 says that in Scotland a firm is a legal person distinct from the partners of whom it is composed. Section 4(3), inserted with effect from 26 October 2023, limits that rule for a limited partnership registered under the Limited Partnerships Act 1907: subsection (2) applies only if the registrar for Scotland registered it. A law-firm LLP is not that 1907 vehicle. The client contract sits with the practice either way. Resignation does not assign it.

The solicitor-partner authority the profession still cites for a covenant that failed is Dallas Macmillan & Sinclair v Simpson 1989 SLT 454. On 14 April 2014 the Law Society of Scotland journal, in “Moving times,” recorded the holding: a five-year restriction that stopped an outgoing partner from practicing within 20 miles of Glasgow city center was unenforceable. The journal describes that radius as one that, at the time, would have covered about half of Scotland’s law firms. The same article says the courts may enforce a heavier restraint between partners than between an employer and an employee, and that a restraint which is too wide still fails. The clauses it lists as typical in an LLP agreement are a non-solicit of clients, a non-solicit of staff or other partners, a restriction on team moves, a prohibition on serving the firm’s existing clients, and, less often, a non-compete that stops the partner working for a competitor. Garden leave, on that account, needs an express clause. Without one, the courts are reluctant to imply the power. A 2014 journal note is not the deed in the file. It is the map of what the deed is likely to contain, and of the 1989 case a wide clause still has to survive.

Who may ask the client is a professional rule, separate from whether the covenant is valid. On 14 August 2017 the Society’s professional practice note said a departing partner is entitled to contact clients for whom that partner acted personally as the responsible partner, and that the partners should agree a joint letter. An associate or assistant, unless the firm agrees, is not entitled to tell clients of the move. The client may approach. The note’s exception is the nominated solicitor on a legal-aid certificate, which it ties to McKinstry v Law Society of Scotland 1997 SLT 510. The note says it is for the client to decide. A non-solicit can restrain the partner from making the ask. It does not assign the instruction.

Scots contract law does not add a consideration requirement before that covenant can be valid. The Law Society of Scotland’s February 2021 response to the UK non-compete consultation says Scots law does not require consideration for a restrictive covenant to be valid as a matter of contract law, and that the same clauses also appear in partnership agreements, LLP agreements and shareholder agreements. The response also records that Scotland is a separate civil jurisdiction from England and Wales. An English employment case about consideration is the wrong test for an Edinburgh deed.

The scorecard in week one, before a name is shown to the partnership, is short.

• Vehicle. Equity member of an LLP, fixed-share member, salaried partner, or partner in an 1890 firm. Only the equity deed usually carries the capital account and the long restraint. A salaried partner may be an employee, and the restraint is then read on employment terms.
• Notice and garden leave. The number of months in the deed, whether garden leave counts toward any post-exit restriction, and whether the firm can keep the partner away from clients during notice. The 14 April 2014 journal says the garden-leave power has to be written down. There is no statutory substitute if the deed is silent.
• Who the clause binds the partner not to call. Clients the partner actually acted for as responsible partner, any client of the firm, or prospective clients who received a pitch. The 14 August 2017 note draws the professional line at clients the partner personally acted for. The deed may be wider or narrower than that note. The deed is the one that gets read.
• Staff. A non-solicit of associates is often the clause that decides whether a practice arrives or a single partner arrives. Team moves are a different mandate, on team lift-out recruiting.
• What the client will actually do. An institutional client of a bank, a sponsor or a listed company often stays with the firm. A client whose work sat with the partner, and who chooses to instruct the new practice, may move. Those are facts about each relationship. They are not a percentage the deed supplies. The 1989 case does not supply one either.

Brodies published profit per equity partner of £930,000 for the year ended 30 April 2026. That is a firm-wide average, in a release dated 30 July 2026 that also records a Leeds office. Burness Paull published profit of £45.7 million for the year ended 31 March 2026. That profit is the firm’s profit, not profit per equity partner, and the 92 partners in The Herald’s report of those results sit in Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Neither cell is an Edinburgh-office draw, a salaried partner’s pay, or the cash a client can be told a named partner makes. They are the numbers a hiring committee has already seen in the press. They are the wrong number to underwrite a guarantee against, until the candidate’s own originations, collections and capital account are on the table.

The pages that hold the rest of the arithmetic are the compensation links for this market. Lawyer salary in Scotland, 2026 is the Scots-qualified cash table, including what the independent firms have and have not printed. Law firm partner salary in the UK, 2026 is the national page, and it keeps Scotland off the England-and-Wales PEP series. Law firm partner salary in London, 2026 is the envelope city’s table, useful because the London line is the search clock on this page, and useless as an Edinburgh draw. Equity and non-equity, as structures rather than as Edinburgh cells, are on equity partner salary, 2026 and non-equity partner salary, 2026.

The retained fee is a percentage of the hire’s own year-one compensation, not of a published PEP. The fee is 25–30 percent of total first-year compensation. Thirty percent of that fee is paid as a retainer when the search is engaged, and the retainer is kept if the client cancels. For an equity seat, total first-year compensation is the amount the offer actually allocates: draw, any guarantee, and the capital the partner must introduce. It is not £930,000 because that is one firm’s average profit per equity partner. Searches are retained only. The letter records the fee before anyone is called.

• Edinburgh market. Private-practice context for the city is on legal recruitment in Edinburgh.
• The practice. Lateral partner recruiting, and team lift-out recruiting when the non-solicit of associates is the real clause.
• Pay. Lawyer salary in Scotland, 2026, UK partner salary, 2026, London partner salary, 2026, equity partner salary, 2026, and non-equity partner salary, 2026.
• Company seats in this city. A general counsel search is not this mandate. It is on in-house counsel recruiting in Edinburgh.
• A partner weighing a move. The firm-side page is this one. The note for the partner is advisory for partners exploring a lateral move.