CONSOLIDATION in the legal sector has led to a number of long-standing brands disappearing in recent years.

While some take this as evidence of the erosion of both Scots law and the Scottish legal profession, Laura Cameron, the Glasgow-based head of Pinsent Masons’ global risk advisory services group, begs to differ.

Having led the litigation team at Scottish stalwart McGrigors, Ms Cameron has seen her practice flourish since the firm was taken over by Pinsent Masons in 2012, to the extent that she now runs a team of over 600 lawyers based in all but two of the firm’s 22 offices.

“I do think the merger has enhanced the practice,” Ms Cameron said.

“We had a strong practice before but we’re now picking up global or UK-wide panel appointments because clients are becoming more driven by wanting to have one or two law firms that they have close relationships with.

“We’re also picking up more work in Scotland that is for Scottish clients but, because it might be related to bribery and corruption or sanctions, it also has an international flavour.

“Because we have an office in Qatar, or offices in Asia, it helps because we have people on the ground or we can send people out there.”

While McGrigors had begun to internationalise in the run up to the Pinsent Masons deal, launching in Qatar in 2011, it would not have been able to gain the kind of coverage Pinsent Masons had through office openings alone.

Yet for a group such as the one Ms Cameron leads, which focuses on everything from health and safety and corporate crime to intellectual property and construction disputes, being able to work internationally is clearly a boon.

This is not least because various international legal systems are based on those in Scotland as well as England and Wales.

While much of the criticism of cross-border mergers that take out a long-standing Scottish legal brand centres on how such deals could devalue Scots law in the longer term, Ms Cameron said the reality is that they help export the principles of Scots law to other jurisdictions.

“My area of focus is health and safety and I’ve been to Qatar, where they have devised a new health and safety regime for the oil and gas sector,” she said.

“The health and safety regime in Scotland came out of the Piper Alpha disaster in the North Sea and the system in Qatar is now very similar to our health and safety case regime.

“We can help clients in the region get to grips with that.”

For the lawyers already working at the firm that has brought more variety and greater scope to expand their CVs, with that in turn feeding back into the firm’s knowledge base.

“When people come to work for us they are not constrained – they can do high-quality Scottish work but we can also offer them opportunities elsewhere,” Ms Cameron said.

“One of our Glasgow lawyers is currently working on a dispute in Qatar and he’s learning from that and bringing that back to the practice. An Aberdeen lawyer has gone to Australia for a month.

“That helps with the retention of staff but we also learn from working on these cases or on massive mining projects.

“We’ve definitely got work that we wouldn’t have if we weren’t part of a bigger network.”

One of the downsides of managing an international group can be the amount of foreign travel that is required, especially as Pinsent Masons, which has launched in Munich, Düsseldorf, Johannesburg, Sydney and Melbourne since taking over McGrigors, is still in growth mode.

However, while Ms Cameron said that, as her family is in Scotland, she has “no strong desire” to constantly travel around the firm’s office network, advances in technology mean “it doesn’t matter where you are”.

“Our telepresence facilities are fantastic now and once you’ve got the mindset of timezones [it doesn’t matter which office you are in],” she said.

“[That allows me to] have regular catch-ups with the team leads from each jurisdiction. I do think it’s easy to be here in Scotland.”

The flipside is that when Ms Cameron does have to travel her colleagues at home are just a teleconference away too.

“I tend to meet people face to face to grow the business – these new office openings take a lot of time and effort,” she said.

“I’ve got my budget review meeting with the finance team and managing partner while I’m in Singapore and I’ll do that by video conference.”