Edinburgh Firm Of Solicitors Finds Fame In Popular Fiction

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 bourgeoisie and bohemian - albeit based on real-life people whom Alexander McCall Smith has come across both socially and professionally in the capital. These characters are complemented by various non-fictional Edinburgh residents who also make cameo appearances from time to time, among them Lesley Kerr, a senior solicitor with Messrs McKay Norwell, an old-established Edinburgh legal firm.

An episode from the latest volume of 44 Scotland Street depicts a scenario whereby Lesley is seated in the kitchen of one of the residents, and 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 as she and Antonia have been friends as well as neighbours, is unable to understand why Lesley will not represent both parties at the same time.

Lesley, of course, explains that this would be neither ethical nor practical and that in order to meet the necessary safeguards, the purchaser and seller of a property - no matter how close - should always be represented separately by different lawyers, which is the advice she would give to any client in her "day" job. That need not, she adds, prevent two friends or relatives from concluding an off-market property deal, should they so wish; but each should have separate legal representation.

This is by no means the first time that the firm 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 McKay Norwell they come to see. As a result, solicitors working there can regularly be found behind the pages of The Scotsman in the morning, eagerly finding out what their fictional alter egos have been doing. McKay Norwell could be described as a "quintessentially Edinburgh law firm" but only in the sense that its client base is by no means restricted to clients like the characters of 44 Scotland Street. 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."