Gillespie Macandrew LLP

Agnes Mallon

Agnes is a Partner in the Private Client Department and advises on a wide range of personal, legal and tax issues, including Wills, Trusts, Inheritance Tax and all aspects of wealth preservation.Agnes has a wide range of experience advising on contentious and complex estates and trusts, often with multi jurisdictional assets with specialist knowledge of judicial factories (borne from litigation claims). She also has substantial experience working on contentious cases regarding foreign assets.Agnes has a keen interest in advising on Succession Planning for Family Businesses, including farming businesses, and strongly believes that working closely with clients other Advisors achieve best results.

Alan Gilfillan

Responsible for advising charity clients in relation to regulatory and contractual matters. Includes charity reorganisation schemes, establishment of new charities, advice in relation to regulatory requirements including protection of vulnerable groups, data protection, lotteries and fundraising. Conducts regular training for charity trustees and assists those who are subject to regulatory inquiry or investigation.Also carries out work of a general commercial nature including business acquisitions and sales, partnerships and joint ventures, other commercial contracts.

Alan White

Alan is a partner in the land and rural business department at Gillespie Macandrew. He has experience in a broad range of rural matters, including forestry, sporting interests and salmon fishings, crofting law, sale and purchase of farms and estates, succession planning and associated tax planning issues. Alan has a particular interest in agricultural holdings and general land management and environmental issues (including various grant schemes), renewable energy (wind and hydro) and minerals. Alan has recently been involved in various sales and acquisitions of a number of properties ranging from small residential estates with salmon fishings, through arable/livestock farms to large estates with significant sporting, farming and forestry aspects; he is currently advising on a number of renewable energy projects covering a range of generating capacities each involving unique intricacies varying from timber crop compensation and re-planting, crofting issues, to partnership structures between developer and landowner for tax planning purposes.

Amy McDowell

Partner in the Energy, Natural Resources and Strategic Land team. Amy acts on behalf of landowners, developers, funders and other third parties in new and ongoing renewable energy developments and in secondary market renewable energy transactions. She also acts in various strategic land developments including a number of large scale residential and mixed use developments across Scotland. Amy has particular experience assisting clients who are developing projects on land subject to crofting tenure, focusing on the various options available to developers in order to identify the best practical solution available.

Andrew Leslie

Associate

Chris Gibson

Experienced Associate undertaking corporate and commercial work including mergers and acquisitions, investments, commercial contracts, intellectual property licences and company secretarial services, especially for clients in the technology sector.

Colin Hamilton

Colin was promoted to Partner in 2017. Primary areas of practice are planning and environmental (non-contentious and contentious), real estate litigation and commercial litigation.  

David Milne

Team leader of commercial property team. Partner specialising in commercial leasing (office, retail, licensed premises), commercial purchase, sale of investment property security work and self-invested personal pensions.

David Christopher Smith

Partner and Head of Corporate; dealing with corporate mergers, acquisitions and investments, corporate structuring for commercial joint ventures and developments, with particular specialisms in third sector companies and family business.

Derek McCulloch

Derek is dual qualified as a solicitor in Scotland and England & Wales and is head of the firm's Energy Natural Resource & Strategic Land team. Derek has over 20 years of experience advising and counselling global and domestic businesses on their major corporate, land and energy projects. As well as leading on some of the UK’s largest energy projects, he has been advising business sector organisations on developing legal and regulatory requirements and implications of climate change and the low carbon economy. He also has a track record in advising on natural resource regulation, university commercialisation and spin out projects, as well as complex joint venture and consortium deals. Derek co-ordinates international cross border projects and trade and is a chairman of the firm's global legal network, Lexwork International, founding their cross-border energy forum. Clients comment that he provides a real understanding of all sides of every issue, as well as possessing great business acumen and an innate appreciation of project risk.

Donald Winskill

Associate in the firm’s private client team, advising on adults with incapacity issues (powers of attorney, guardianships and intervention orders), Wills, tax planning and executries. He is accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a specialist in Incapacity & Mental Disability Law, and recently completed the STEP Diploma in Trusts and Estates (Scotland) with distinction.

Eilidh G Adams

Legal Director in the firm’s Private Client team specialising in tax and estate planning for individuals, families and trusts. Advises on lifetime and post death tax planning, Will drafting, trust and executry administration and asset protection. Also advises on Powers of Attorney and Living Wills.

Elspeth Paget

Head of the firm’s Private Client team dealing with wills, trusts, executries, powers of attorney and general care for the Elderly.

Fiona Cameron

Fiona is a Partner in Gillespie Macandrew’s dispute resolution and litigation team. She has particular specialism in property and employment disputes. Fiona acts for a variety of clients in Sheriff Court, Court of Session, Scottish Land Court and Employment Tribunal proceedings. She also regularly advises on a range of non-contentious matters, and maintains interest and experience in ADR, specifically mediation. Fiona prides herself on providing commercial, clear, solutions-driven advice.

Fraser Leslie

Fraser is a Partner in the Firm`s Land and Rural Business Department. His main areas of practice lie in all property aspect of renewable energy projects, commercial property affecting the rural sector and Voluntary First Registration. Fraser is also responsible for the operational running of the Department.

Greg Peebles

Partner with 20 years' experience in all aspects of commercial property work in Scotland. Considerable experience in development projects, investment purchases and sales and secured lending. Projects include the development of a major international hotel, Business Premises Renovation Allowance (BPRA) schemes, and developments in the healthcare and student accommodation sectors. Particular expertise acting for both landlords and tenants in shopping centres and on the high street over a number of years including Starbucks, Halfords, New Look, Habitat, Benetton and Paddy Power. Whilst in Dubai working as part of the legal team advising government departments on number of major residential and commercial property schemes, including Jumeirah Lake Towers and The Palm, Jumeirah and also advising IFA Hotels and Resorts.

Harry Smith

Partner specialising in land acquisition and disposals for housebuilders, site assembly, plot disposal, planning, funding and development agreements.

Isobell Reid

Isobell was promoted to Partner in 2017. She works in the firm’s litigation Dispute Resolution team specialising in property disputes, covering construction (both contentious and non-contentious), planning and contract, although she maintains a broad commercial litigation practice. She has over 12 years’ experience of the Court of Session and Sheriff Courts as well as representing clients before the Lands Tribunal For Scotland and the Scottish Land Court, in arbitrations, adjudications and other hearings and inquiries such as planning appeals. She obtained the LLM in Construction Law from the University of Strathclyde in 2007.

Jennifer Maciver

Jenny is a Legal Director and the Head of our Family Law team.  She is a practical, solution focussed advisor.Originally trained as a corporate lawyer, Jenny has brought her knowledge of business to the family law sphere, where she has now worked exclusively for more than a decade.  She has also spent significant periods of time living, working and studying abroad in Canada, Japan and Europe.  Given her background, she is best known for her work on financial claims on separation and divorce and on international cases, where at least one of the parties is living in England or abroad, or is a foreign national.  She also has a particular interest in child law, including child support, relocation and disputes about the care arrangements for children following a separation.  Her clients include professionals, business owners, land owners, expatriates and those in the public eye, as well as their partners and spouses.

JMG Blair

Partner in the firm’s land and rural business department handling agricultural, forestry and estate purchases and sales. He is accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a specialist in agricultural law.

John McArthur

Partner in Gillespie Macandrew’s Private Client Department, and while specialising in tax he provides advice on IHT, CGT, LBTT and on all areas of succession planning, the drafting of complex trust and succession documents and contentious succession planning cases including negotiations with HMRC on complex tax cases. John appeared for  the taxpayer in the IHT penalty case of Cairns v HMRC and has acted for the taxpayer in many other tax cases - reported and unreported.

John B Stirling

Partner and Solicitor-Advocate specialising in property litigation; (Danish Forestry Ltd v Scottish Coal Ltd, Sustainable Shetland v The Scottish Ministers), RSPB v Scottish Ministers, corporate reconstructions (Sportech plc Petitioner), Premier Oil plc, construction (Maxi Construction v Mortons Rolls; Holt v Colt), constitutional law (Clancy v Caird; Salvesen v Riddle), and charities (clerk to the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, Clerk to the Incorporation of Goldsmiths of Edinburgh).

Kenneth Irons

Commercial property and property finance advice, acting for multinationals and large corporate clients, SMEs and family businesses in the finance, investment, retail, development, energy and waste management sectors. Advising clients in the development of an anaerobic digestion facility; acting for clients in a complex sale of land for a supermarket redevelopment and advising a fund management business on its lease of prestigious Edinburgh offices; acting for a multinational manufacturer in the Scottish aspects of a £125m refinance transaction; providing advice to a major multinational retailer in connection with its Scottish operations; advising a FTSE 250 company on its lease of new Aberdeen offices.

Lianne Lodge

Lianne is Head of Charities and Not For Profit and an Associate in the Private Client team.  Lianne leads on advising our clients on charity law, governance reviews and philanthropic giving. Lianne also has a special interest in advising elderly clients and their families on asset protection, succession planning and issues surrounding incapacity and is the co-author of the second edition of the legal textbook ‘The Elder Client - A Practical Guide’

Robert Andrew Scott-Dempster

Robert is head of the firm’s Land and Rural Business team. His main area of practice lies in agriculture and landed estates, rural businesses, renewable energy, ownership structures and capital taxation. He is accredited by the Law Society of Scotland as a specialist in agricultural law.

Simon Williams

Simon is a Legal Director in our Energy, Infrastructure and Natural Resources team and is qualified in both Scotland and England & Wales.

SL Wilson Hunter

Partner in charge of the residential department.

Viktoria Wahle

Viktoria is an Associate in the Land and Rural Business team and joined Gillespie Macandrew in May 2017. She is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh and has specialised in agricultural and rural property matters since qualifying and has experience in dealing with many aspects of agricultural tenancy matters.  Viktoria also deals with a broad range of rural property matters including the acquisition and sale of country houses, estates, forestry and farms, acting for both borrower and lender in security transactions and has previous experience of advising in relation to both residential and commercial developments, particularly those with a rural context, including the drafting and negotiation of option agreements and planning promotion agreements. In addition, Viktoria has experience in acting for both landowners and developers in a variety of projects including wind turbine developments, hydro schemes and solar power developments.