Commercial law firm Maclay Murray & Spens LLP has strengthened its financial services capabilities with the appointment of Carolyn Bell, as director of its financial services group in Edinburgh.

The former in-house managing legal counsel with Lloyds Banking Group and Aberdeen Asset Management joins the firm’s financial services group, comprising over 20 lawyers, including six partners, operating across the UK-wide practice.

Carolyn Bell has over ten years’ experience in the UK and overseas investment funds sector, including the merging of asset management businesses and providing advice on regulated and unregulated investment structures. Her main areas of practice are collective investment schemes, pooled investments and financial services regulatory work. She handles onshore schemes, including authorised and unauthorised unit trusts and limited partnerships and offshore schemes, such as trusts, open-ended companies and closed-ended funds. Carolyn also has broad experience of operational matters and outsourcing arrangements in the asset management industry.

Carolyn also undertakes general financial services work, including regulatory advice, structuring and marketing investment schemes.

Guy Norfolk, partner and head of MMS’ Financial Services Group, said: “Carolyn is a highly regarded investment funds lawyer and her appointment is in line with our strategy to further strengthen our financial services offering, at a time when we are advising on a number of major transactions in the asset management space. Her significant and broad experience covering the UK and overseas asset management sectors, coupled with her specialist expertise across insurance, pensions, private equity and wealth, will be a valuable addition to the our corporate division as a whole.”

Carolyn Bell added: “I am very excited by this opportunity to join the firm’s financial services group, which has established an impressive track record in the asset management and financial services sector.”

A member of the Law Society of England & Wales, Carolyn has 16 years of experience working within the highly regulated financial and asset management services sector in both private practice and in-house counsel roles. This includes ten years in London working in mergers and acquisitions with city law firm Hammonds, before moving to Scotland in 2008, eventually going in-house, first with Lloyds Banking Group and latterly as managing legal counsel with Aberdeen Asset Management.

Carolyn Bell is a non-executive director of Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh.