Highest-flying Scots legal eagle earns nearly £2m in 'a good and busy year'

• Dickson married 'cashmere queen' Belinda Robertson after paying one of Scotland's biggest divorce settlements

But after earning 1.9 million last year Alastair Dickson clearly is not neglecting the day job.

His firm Dickson Minto has been identified as having Scotland's highest-earning lawyer by Legal Business magazine, which also places it second for the whole of the UK.

Although it does not name Mr Dickson, and the company would not confirm or deny reports about partners' earnings, it is understood he is the firm's highest-paid lawyer.

Mr Dickson divorced Josephine Dickson, his wife of 28 years and mother of his three children, in 2002.

He paid her a settlement worth 6m, which included a 12-apartment Victorian villa that the couple shared in the Trinity district of Edinburgh, along with most of its contents. He then married Belinda Robertson, a celebrated Edinburgh fashion designer best known for her cashmere, making them one of the most successful entrepreneurial couples in the UK.

Dickson Minto, which specialises in corporate law, has offices in Edinburgh and London, but has deliberately remained a small operation, shunning mergers and growth for growth's sake.

Mr Dickson, 59, said: "We run from April to April, and 2009-10 has been a good and busy year for us.

"We did a lot of restructuring to the business down in London, cut costs, and sometimes things just come together.

"We're not interested in being the biggest, we're always much more interested in profits per partner. We're not interested in growth, we are more interested in profitability than size."

He added: "A legal business, corporate or otherwise, is based on the quality of its people.

"When companies get bigger they can end up diluting the quality. We prefer to stay small and make sure we have high-quality people.

"There are some apparent disadvantages of that. For example, if you have 500 partners putting in 10,000 each, then you've got 5m to put into a project. That does not necessarily mean it's a good thing to do."

Mr Dickson has previously admitted that 2008-9 was one of the firm's most difficult years, with its profit margin dropping below 35 per cent for the first time in its history.

However, things are looking better now, with Dickson Minto increasing turnover by 12 per cent and decreasing costs by a similar amount. It is an example that Iain McMillan, director of CBI Scotland, hopes will be picked up by other companies.

He said: "Dickson Minto is a very, very successful legal firm, not just in Scotland but in the UK as a whole."What we do need are successful people, who are able to build successful businesses, both here and in other parts of the UK and beyond.

"That entrepreneurial flair brings the creation of jobs and wealth for others, as well as, of course, taxes paid to government.

"Entrepreneurs are taking risks that other directors and senior managers are not taking, and they should be rewarded for that."

Dickson Minto is a world away from the majority of the Scottish legal profession.

The Law Society Scotland recently put the median profit per partner at 72,000 a year.

Bruce Ritchie, director of professional practice at the Law Society Scotland, said: "Dickson Minto do very well in the City of London; that's where they make their money.

"They are so untypical of Scottish firms that no conclusion can be made from their figures alone.

"But it is good to see a Scottish business doing so well, and I'm sure the Scottish Government will be delighted to see it."

Richard Lloyd, the editor of Legal Business magazine, warned: "Almost two-thirds of the 100 law firms in our survey posted an increase in profits per equity partner, yet less than half of them achieved growth in revenue. The redundancy rounds of the past two years and cuts to discretionary spending have served equity partners well."