The firm has strengthened its reputation as a leading Pensions practice with a string of new appointments in its Edinburgh office

Independent UK law firm Burges Salmon has further strengthened its Edinburgh team with the recent appointment of a new senior lawyer joining the firm’s sizeable national Pensions and Lifetime Savings practice.

Mairi Carlin joins as a professional support lawyer. Previously a pensions legal director at Pinsent Masons and then latterly at Brodies, Mairi has a broad range of expertise advising employers, including many household name providers, as well as trustees on the whole range of pensions issues. Mairi has also advised on the technical aspects of SIPPs/SSAS provision and has provided corporate support on pensions aspects of mergers and acquisitions. Her particular specialism centres on public sector pensions issues including on private to public sector outsourcings, TUPE transfers and private to public scheme transfers. She has always taken a keen interest in training both clients and more junior colleagues.

Mairi’s appointment is the latest in a series of new hires in Scotland for the firm’s Pensions practice following the arrival of senior lawyer Helen Woodford late in 2023 and solicitors Sophie Kirk and Shannon Wright-Davies a few months earlier.

Helen previously held senior roles in national and multi-national law firms such as Womble Bond Dickinson and has specialised in pensions law for over two decades, gaining a wide variety of experience acting for both trustees and sponsors operating in many sectors, including energy, manufacturing, retail, transport and the charity and not-for-profit sector. Sophie specialised in private client advice before moving to Burges Salmon’s Pensions team, bringing valuable trust law experience with her. Shannon joined having previously been a member of the Pensions team at CMS Edinburgh.

The four recruits join solicitor and notary public Sarah Moody (nee Fairley), who advises clients in relation to both defined benefit and defined contribution schemes, with a particular interest in the employment law aspects of pensions provision, due to her former specialism as an employment lawyer.

The new appointments strengthen Burges Salmon’s Pensions practice in Scotland and enhance the firm’s reputation as having one of the largest Pensions teams in the country and being included amongst the few national firms to have pensions lawyers qualified in all three UK jurisdictions.

Richard Knight, head of Pensions and Lifetime Savings at Burges Salmon, says: “It’s a pleasure to welcome Mairi to our fast-expanding Edinburgh team. The recent appointments of Mairi, Helen, Sophie and Shannon significantly enhance our Pensions offering in Scotland and affirm our commitment to the Scottish market and to our Scottish clients, building on our reputation as one of the largest, most specialist Pensions team in the UK. We’re also delighted to welcome a further senior associate joining our team in April. The Defined Benefit Funding Code coming into force in April,  the Mansion House reforms and the increased focus on ESG from the Regulator mean pensions schemes are today facing ever-greater challenges and we’ve scaled up our team to support our clients navigate through this volatile regulatory environment.”

Burges Salmon celebrates its fifth anniversary in Edinburgh this year where it has developed a strong reputation as a market leading law firm advising Scottish clients on nationally significant projects spanning a broad range of sectors. The firm’s Pensions team is highly regarded in the legal industry, advising around 10 percent of the UK’s trust-based occupational pension schemes and acting on some of the most complex and high-profile cases. The firm’s pensions clients – some of whom it has represented for more than 30 years – span the private and public sectors, large commercial master trusts, not-for-profit organisations as well as religious and educational bodies, and the team continues to build upon its trusted status in the international arena, providing specialist UK legal advice to its international clients and coordinating advice across multiple jurisdictions.

Recognising that innovation in the pensions industry is vital to understanding its ever-changing landscape, the firm has brought to market a number of interactive tools to shape best practice and support clients meet their statutory requirements, including an ESG Pensions toolkit and a UK Pensions for International Companies Triage tool, both of which have been nominated at this year’s Pensions Age Awards, where the firm is also a finalist in Pensions Law Firm of the Year.