In the second part of the series which sees the firm magazine leave the safety of its Glasgow base, we travel down the M74 to visit the picturesque town of Dumfries to discuss some of the issues that face legal practitioners there. Steven Raeburn reports.


There are two properties advertised for sale in the Dumfries and Galloway Solicitors Property Centre magazine that perhaps tell you a thousand words of truth about this most particular corner of the legal world. The first is a commercial premises in the centre of town, just off the main high street, yours for offers around £40,000.
The other is a house for sale near the tiny hamlet of Kilpatrick Fleming, with an asking price of offers over £998,000. One perhaps represents the best of times, the other certainly the worst, and in the spirit of Dickens’ masterpiece, the story of Dumfries is arguably a tale of two cities, rolled into one and perched precariously on an ox bow promontory by the banks of the oft flooded River Nith.
It is arguable that there is no population centre anywhere in Scotland on this scale that is so isolated from other towns of a comparable size. The distinct legal community in this town of around 40,000 people is in some ways a microcosmic representation of the legal profession as a whole, although digging a little deeper into the realities of legal life here reveals a town with particular and acute concerns that may represent wider, underlying, more chronic problems in the administration of justice in the country.
Kenneth Ross, one of the two Sheriffs presiding over the town’s baronial Sheriff Court, says he is greatly concerned that the legal profession is not addressing the imbalance in the numbers of the up and coming legal profession, which is not replenishing itself at a sustainable rate. He believes something ought to be done at a macro level to ensure that young lawyers are not all drawn towards the central belt or into commercial practice, the usual fate of the area’s bright young minds. One consequence for the profession as a whole is that the larger firms become larger, to the detriment of the smaller.
Nick Gordon and William McVicar, partners in the town’s largest practice John Henderson and Sons, took time out to talk to the Firm about the legal culture in the area. Dumfries firms serve the wider Dumfries and Galloway area, from Gretna in the south, Stranraer in the west, and all points in between, for a population of around 148,000. The firm handles the full range of clients’ commercial, residential, public and private legal demands, but despite this, McVicar notes that the remunerative imbalance between outlying areas and the commercial practices of the central belt means that young lawyers –graduating with a high level of debt- are choosing to go to the lights and lucre of the central belt, leaving less legal cover and expertise in the country towns.
“There is an issue of access to justice that people should be aware of,” he says.
“In this area there is, over the years, a decline in the number of practitioners who are able to do court work. General practices have by and large given up doing court work. There are no firms in Kircudbright doing criminal court work; duty shifts there are being covered by Dumfries firms. There are obvious concerns,”
“One of the local solicitors is convenor of the Law Society’s access to justice committee, and he has spoken frequently about the problems of rural areas providing cover for some of the work that you might think would be fairly standard in the cities, just because there are fewer practitioners. I know that the Law Society is working on that, but I don’t know if anything concrete has come out of it, but it is a concern. I think there is a view among younger people that the city is the place to be. ”
Partner Nick Gordon believes the problem is not endemic to Dumfries, but epidemic across all Scotland. “There are issues that exist in a rural region like Dumfries and Galloway. I think the issue of younger lawyers being attracted to the bright lights of the big cities exists everywhere,” he says.
Across the Nith, Paul Matthews of ABA Matthews says that there can be problems attracting – and more particularly retaining- young legal talent, who often take the experience of their training off to the central belt. Former trainees from his own firm have moved on to great success in Anderson Strathern, Simpson and Marwick and Dundas and Wilson. There are a lot of reasons why the town does not always hold on to its young professionals.
“Dumfries is little sad at the moment. It is looking tired and needs regeneration,” he says.
“You have to be a general practitioner. Firms will have the need to be able to turn their hands to anything. It has not been easy. There is a lot of competition. Good competition, which has been good for the locals. We have the same pressure on profits, and it is difficult. It is a constant battle to try and improve on what you are doing. That is tiring and expensive. And you find if you do it, your competition will do it.”
Noting that the majority of staff who have ultimately remained in the area have done so for personal rather than strictly professional reasons, Matthews jokes that it may be advantageous to open up a dating agency in parallel with his legal practice. He may be onto something there, given the experiences of his former colleagues.
“Our most recent trainee is now qualified, and has married in the area. I think trainees who come here either coming because they can’t get placed anywhere else, or most likely they have a girlfriend or boyfriend in the area. You tend to find the romantic are the likely reason for people to come.”
The area is also not short of potential entrepreneurs who may indeed pursue that challenge.
“We have new population, incomers. People who have moved up from south of the border because the property here represents good value to them, and they like the quality of life, and they have good access to healthcare,” he says.
“They like that we have a low crime rate. But what it has meant for the area is that they have brought in refreshing ideas, money and in the outlying villages, sports clubs will be getting patronised by new residents who are keen. So we need that.”
That sentiment is shared by John Burn, back on the east side of the river, of town firm Primrose and Gordon, who moved to Dumfries after completing his apprenticeship in 1966, and is still here. He expresses concern that newly qualifieds are unlikely to emulate his career progression, with potentially serious consequences for the town, and ultimately for access to justice.
“Our difficulty is that once people have done their traineeship, they go back to the city,” he says.
“We have three partners, all not getting any younger. There is a succession issue, and I think that is one of the problems in a lot of small towns. The court side is getting much more difficult. The rates for criminal work are pathetic. The younger solicitors are not really interested in going into criminal work. That is going to have some effect. They are going into the big cities. I don’t know what the way forward is.”
Whilst hesitant to retread the tired phrase that the status quo is not a tenable option, Burn agrees that, at this time when alternative business structures are the top of the legal agenda, it is essential that the profession addresses not only the priorities of the ‘consumer’, but the very real threat to the availability of justice. Without direct intervention, the very opposite of choice will be achieved.
“I think there will be a tendency towards larger firms and amalgamation,” he says. “There will be a reluctance in solicitors to take on certain business, particularly if they face a large penalty for getting it wrong. There may be other people doing that type of work.”
Like many other small towns in the country, the new 24 hour Tesco is “sucking up” much of the business that once went to the town centre, as one Dumfries practitioner told us.
Don’t let it take the law with it, too.