You wouldn’t normally expect to read about your firm of solicitors in the bestseller you take on holiday with you. But McKay Norwell is an exception. Even fictional characters now take our advice…
Fans of Alexander McCall Smith will be aware that the Edinburgh-based author likes to intersperse real people with the characters in his popular work of fiction, 44 Scotland Street, which is regularly serialised in The Scotsman and published by Little Brown in a series of novels (six so far).
Although Scotland Street can be found in a map of the New Town, No 44 is a fictional address, whose various residents, also fictional, are an eclectic mix of the bourgeois and the bohemian - albeit based on real-life people who Alexander McCall Smith has come across both socially and professionally in the capital.
These characters are complemented by various non-fictional Edinburgh residents who make cameo appearances from time to time, and among them is our own Lesley Kerr, senior associate and joint head of our residential property department. In an episode from the latest volume, Lesley is seated in the kitchen of one of the main characters, Domenica, who is keen to purchase the flat next door, following the decision of the owner (Antonia) to spend the rest of her life in a convent. Domenica wants Lesley to act on her behalf in the purchase but is unable to understand why Lesley will not represent both parties at the same time.
Fictional Lesley explains that this would be neither ethical nor practical, and that the purchaser and seller of a property should always be represented by different lawyers (which is the same advice that the real Leslie would always give). That need not, she adds, prevent two friends or relatives from concluding an off-market property deal, but each should still have separate legal representation.
This is by no means the first time that McKay Norwell has appeared in the lives of the residents of 44 Scotland Street. If any of them has a legal problem, it seems that it’s us they come to see. As a result, we can regularly be found behind the pages of The Scotsman in the morning, eagerly finding out what our fictional alter egos have been doing.
McKay Norwell could be described as a quintessentially Edinburgh law firm, but our client base is by no means restricted to people like the characters of 44 Scotland Street. As the real Lesley says: “If we are well known as an Edinburgh law firm it is because we represent people from across the entire spectrum of the city.”
If you have a legal problem in real life, don’t hesitate to contact us on 0131 222 8000.
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