Praised for its ‘wealth of experience’ in the public sector, the parliamentary and public law practice at Burness Paull LLP is regularly instructed by local authorities and Scottish governmental bodies to advise on parliamentary issues, judicial reviews and legislative drafting. Hazel Moffat leads the team and has significant expertise in statutory interpretation and drafting; she is assisted by senior solicitor Louise McErlean.
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Testimonials
Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.
‘The team at Burness Paull has a wealth of experience in working with a range of public bodies. They also have experience and knowledge of a wide breadth of regulatory law that applies to us as an organisation and employer, from equality law to data protection and freedom of information. We trust them to provide us with excellent advice.'
‘They are approachable, reliable, friendly, efficient, knowledgeable and inspire confidence. They have great values. Standouts include senior solicitor Louise McErlean.’
‘Although a relatively new team, they bring together expertise from different firms and have quickly developed into a strong and trusted team.’
‘Louise McErlean previously worked at a large commercial firm and brings that style of work and enthusiasm to her new team.’
Key clients
- First Division Association
- Scottish Public Services Ombudsman
- Audit Scotland
- Scottish Funding Council
- Scottish Legal Complaints Commission
- Odfjell Technology (UK) Ltd
- British Soft Drinks Association
- Highlands and Islands Enterprise
- Scottish Enterprise
- British Property Federation and Associated Landlords
- Independent Monitoring Authority (IMA)
Work highlights
- Advised the Association of Scotland’s Self Caterers (ASSC) on the legality of draft secondary legislation proposed by the Scottish Government, which would bring in the first licensing regime of its kind of short term lets in Europe. The political aim of the legislation was to control the rise of AirBnB type properties in tourism hotspots across Scotland.
- Advised the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) on a range of administrative and public law matters, including on the interpretation of UK legislation governing the use of statistical data obtained from the HE sector, and on data sharing in the context of European Social Fund monitoring.
- Advising Arnold Clark Group on managing a major cyber attack, which brought down its entire network and systems in December 2022. As it is a ransomware attack, the firm has been managing interactions with Scottish Police, the UK cyber crime centre, insurance support teams and various external cyber support consultants to mitigate legal and regulatory risk.
Lawyers
Hall of Fame
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Leading associates
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Practice head
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Hazel Moffat