Friends Legal has acquired the biggest firm of solicitors and estate agents in East Lothian.
The takeover of Garden Stirling Burnet (GSB) creates a business with over £7m-a-year turnover and 60 staff in six offices across Scotland. It also gives Glasgow-headquartered Friends Legal a platform to create one of the biggest specialist private client firms in Scotland.
The Garden Stirling Burnet name will be retained, while becoming part of the Friends Legal network.
However, investment into the firm’s 22-strong team across its four offices in Dunbar, Haddington, North Berwick and Tranent, will underpin ambitions to double the headcount and turnover in three years.
Tony O’Malley, managing partner of Friends Legal, said: “GSB is a great business with a brilliant reputation, fantastic people and an unmatched footprint across East Lothian - we will re-establish GSB in the local market by investing in its people, infrastructure and brand.
“It’s the largest legal practice by footprint and headcount in the county, but has perhaps lost market share in recent years, so our aim is to put it firmly back on the map by offering premium services at a fair price.”
While GSB is best known for its estate agency, executry and conveyancing work, a priority will be to unlock the potential of its whole private client team, including family law and its letting business.
Friends Legal already offers direct to consumer executry, wills and power of attorney work via its By Your Side service.
The acquisition should also enable Friends Legal to explore further consumer legal services, particularly in conveyancing and remortgaging. From its Glasgow headquarters and another office in Edinburgh, it already provides volume personal injury and medical negligence services.
O’Malley, who founded the Friends Legal brand in 2016, is keeping on GSB directors Alan Borrowman, Angela Craig and Ian Philp for at least a year. New consultancy roles will free them up to focus on work they enjoy.
Borrowman said: “This is the right deal at the right time and will be fantastic for the dedicated and hard-working team we’ve established at GSB over many years.”
After building his career as a litigation partner with Edinburgh firm Henderson Boyd Jackson, where he oversaw its successful volume claims division, O’Malley went on to launch Friends Legal by leading the Scottish managed buy-out of UK personal injury and insurance business, the Parabis Group.
He grew turnover from £2.5m to £6.6m before pandemic lockdowns interrupted its core business managing high volume motor accident claims. O’Malley pivoted by establishing By Your Side, which then led to acquisition opportunities to service the conveyancing leads it generated.
GSB meanwhile, traces its roots back to the creation of legal firm Stirling and Burnet in the early 1900s.
In 2015, it changed from a partnership to a limited company under the stewardship of the three current directors.
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