IT MAY have come half way through the year, but the UK’s decision to leave the European Union was the event that has defined 2016 for most.

Indeed, Anderson Strathern managing partner Murray McCall described the June 23 Brexit vote as “potentially the most profound political event of my lifetime”.

Burness Paull chairman Philip Rodney, meanwhile, said the vote itself has resulted in some “dramatic legal highlights”, the most notable being that “all 11 justices of the Supreme Court sat together for the first time since its formation to decide the landmark case on Brexit”.

Mr McCall agreed that this was radical, noting that “to have a major constitutional issue played out on national TV would have been unthinkable when I was a law student in the 1990s”.

“How interesting it has been to watch this unfold as the Supreme Court rules on whether the Government can trigger Article 50 to leave the EU without a parliamentary vote,” he added.

Yet it is the wider impact of the referendum that is having an impact on the way firms in Scotland do business.

Liam Entwistle, chief executive at Wright Johnston & Mackenzie, said it is not “the big rocks such as Brexit or Indyref2 that directly rock the boat, but the waves of change they send into the marketplace”.

Consolidation in the legal sector is one wave of change that began long before the public went to the polls in June, but Mr Entwistle expects to see more of this in the coming years, as the economic issues caused by the Brexit vote feed down to the legal profession.

“Areas where we don’t seek business, such as the public sector, are likely to be more profoundly affected by the turgid economy,” he said.

“That in turn will impact on us, as the larger firms, who traditionally have a large share of these markets, find turnover being squeezed.

“That is likely to mean more activity in our parts of the market by bigger players so we have to be alert to chain reactions, and one step ahead. It is likely to lead to more consolidation in the mid term.”

Mr Rodney, who runs one of Scotland’s largest commercial practices, agreed that “some aspects of legal business could become unrecognisable”, with a “combination of technological, geopolitical and sociological change” being the driver.

“If there is one theme that has emerged over the last 12 months in the UK, across Europe and beyond, it is that there is a clash between globalisation and cultural identity,” he said.

“The one size fits all model is being rejected. We need intimacy with the markets in which we operate. We need to understand their cultures and traditions and not try and make them fit into our matrix.

“This will mean more international collaboration not just between corporations, but between law firms, properly understanding the markets in which they operate.”

For Craig Nicol, joint managing partner at Thorntons, it is this outward facing trend that has proved the silver lining of Brexit.

Although the devaluation of the pound in the aftermath of the vote is proving to be bad news for consumers, who are moving into 2017 facing inflationary pressures, for businesses it has created opportunities, he said.

Mr Nicol noted that the devaluation of the currency has “provided some great opportunities for businesses which export by making them much more competitive”.

“Many of our clients in the food and drink sector in particular are reaching into new markets in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa,” he said.

“This has provided opportunities for our expanding trademark practice to help them protect their brands across the world.”

Mr Rodney at Burness Paull agreed.

“With the reduced value of sterling, there will be opportunities too,” he said. “There is likely to be more international investment into the UK by overseas buyers - international investors are starting to realise that the UK doesn’t equal London and are looking for targets in Scotland.”

And the fact that the UK is ending the year no clearer on what Brexit will actually mean than it was at the end of June means the opportunities will continue to arise.

“Despite the challenges that Brexit has brought to businesses such as ours, it has also brought a significant increase in the workloads of our immigration and education teams,” Mr Nicol said.

“Their advice is more sought after than ever as our clients seek support on how to deal with the fallout that Brexit might have on their organisations, particularly given the ongoing uncertainties around research funding.”