Neil Kennedy, MacRoberts' managing partner

The British Legal Awards are the leading awards for the UK’s business law community, acting as a platform for the achievements of the best lawyers in the UK.

Hosted by Legal Week in association with The City of London Law Society, the ceremony was attended by over 700 top lawyers from the UK’s legal community. All the winners are decided by an independent judging panel, chaired by Edward Sparrow, chair of the City of London Law Society.

MacRoberts, the only independent Scottish firm recognised at the awards, enjoyed this success on the back of a very positive year for the firm.

The Corporate Finance team has had a record year, acting in over 123 deals worth in excess of £600m.

These deals spanned a large number of sectors and a wide range of deal values, involving both ends of the spectrum, from large PLCs to some of Scotland’s most ambitious start-ups, including BAM Properties, Black & Lizars, Breedon Aggregates, Equitix, Renaissance Care, Renewi Group and Together Energy.

Despite an unstable political landscape, MacRoberts also enjoyed a 12% rise in profits and a 4% rise in turnover for the year 2018/19. This was against a backdrop of continued investment in people, best available technology, flexible working practices and fairer remuneration structures.

This is not the first time MacRoberts has been recognised at these awards. The Real Estate team won Property Team of the Year (2018) and the commercial team was highly commended in 2017.

Neil Kennedy, managing partner, said: “Being recognised at a national level amongst magic circle firms each year for the last three years is an amazing achievement for us. The Corporate team continues to impress with their achievements and I am really proud of them. Our recent tender wins and pleasing financial performance is testament to the hard work by everyone at the firm.”

Alan Kelly, head of corporate finance, added: “We were delighted to be ‘Highly Commended’ at the British Legal Awards. We have worked extremely hard over the last 12 months and enjoyed considerable success and growth. This is a great end to a great year and we are really looking forward to seeing what 2020 will bring.”