Interview: David McElroy, managing partner at Glasgow-based solicitor Dallas McMillan

Legal boss just can’t get enough of giving back and remaining an independent player in a competitive and consolidating Scottish legal sector.

David McElroy, managing partner at Dallas McMillan, is spearheading the Glasgow-based law firm’s “ambitious” bid to raise a six-figure sum to help some of the most vulnerable people in its community.

And with the move rather at odds with any stereotypes of the legal sector as greedy, he laughs when reminded of the episode of The Simpsons where gaffe-prone attorney Lionel Hutz asks what a world without lawyers would look like, a scenario portrayed as people of all nations gleefully holding hands across the world. “If we can turn that perception [of the profession] around, then all the better,” says McElroy.

The recently announced fundraiser looks to generate a mammoth £150,000 in time for Dallas McMillan’s 150th anniversary next year, with a view to marking the occasion “in a meaningful and ambitious way”, according to its managing partner.

The total is being distributed among charities Children’s Hospices Across Scotland; The Prince & Princess of Wales Hospice; the Good Morning Service (a 365-day telephone befriending and safety-net alert service for vulnerable older people), and The Simon Community Scotland that helps those facing homelessness.

As for how the news of the fundraiser has been received, it has “certainly caught people's interest”, McElroy states. “I think everyone who sees it at first thinks ‘that's a bit ambitious’. But once people take it on board, I think they see what we're trying to do. And there's a lot of excitement about it, both in the firm and outwith the firm, so yes, it's had a positive response, certainly.”

It also comes as the firm – whose key practice areas include personal injury, commercial property, employment law and commercial litigation, conveyancing and estate agency, and private client – seeks to modernise the way it works, as well as achieving meaningful growth.

“And growing in the legal industry is not exactly easy at the moment, it’s very competitive, and a lot of firms are disappearing or merging.” He cites what was then billed as Scotland’s largest law firm Dundas & Wilson being taken over by CMS about a decade ago, while last year saw the creation of Morton Fraser MacRoberts in what was described as the largest Scottish legal merger in ten years.

'There's a lot of excitement about it, both in the firm and outwith the firm,' says McElroy of Dallas McMillan's fundraiser. Picture: Phil Wilkinson/Dallas McMillan.

“There have been massive changes [in the sector] over the last 20 years – it doesn't show any sign of slowing down in that regard, so we're quite happy to stay independent, and stay on our own, and keep growing ourselves,” says the Dallas McMillan boss.

The firm getting out its chequebook and inking its own acquisitions to fuel such expansion is not off the table, he adds, citing “tentative discussions” with relevant players in the past in this regard. “We feel that we're in a place where we would be able to do that, to basically become the big fish in one of those transactions, which may not be an obvious thing for a firm of our size.”

Dallas McMillan has said it is on target to reach record turnover and pre-tax profit for the 2023/24 financial year, and has seen its now seven-figure income grow by a fifth per annum for the last three.

Also on the cards is boosting the troops, its private client and conveyancing teams key target areas for such expansion, for example. And McElroy says the aim is to grow the firm’s number of partners from six at present to around the ten mark over the next two to five years, on that note highlighting research showing that there are 1,038 law firms in Scotland, only 38 of which have ten or more partners.

McElroy with senior partner Forbes Leslie. Picture: Phil Wilkinson/Dallas McMillan.

However, hiring trainees when other, larger players are able to dangle heftier pay packets is a challenge, he says – but the firm aims to keep all such staff on after they qualify, and says it has an average retention rate of 75 per cent.

The Law Society of Scotland recently increased its recommended minimum pay rates for trainee solicitors, “in recognition of persistent inflation and cost-of-living pressures”, to £23,675 for those in their first year, an extra £1,125 per year, for example, from the start of next month.

McElroy himself has been with Dallas McMillan since 2001, having originally decided to study law because of “the breadth of the degree and the avenues it can open up”. He specialised in personal injury as it was the field he found most interesting, and he now mainly handles “complex and life-changing” injury cases.

And that has its rewarding moments. When it comes to big cases, “you’re never going to be able to put people back in the position they were, but for the negligence, but you can make a difference by ensuring that they're then able to get more quality of life than they might have had otherwise.”

The legal boss – who is also a big fan of Depeche Mode and has written a book about the band – adds: “It's certainly the case that litigation is expensive. However, our firm will only litigate cases if it's necessary.” How does it avoid progressing potentially fraudulent claims? Being rigorous is key, he says. “As long as you keep your wits about you, you can usually weed them out fairly early.”

Dallas McMillan points out that it last year secured a “landmark” equal pay victory for Fife Council workers, acting for more than 1,000 claimants in the case. In terms of scaling its own income, the firm hopes to continue to achieve 20 per cent year-on-year turnover growth that is dependent, of course, “on the work coming in”. McElroy adds: “But this year, we're forecasting a good year, and we hope next year will be a good one as well. We certainly hope to keep growing.”