Blackadders

Blackadders is a full-service Scottish law firm with offices in Dundee, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Its business services group covers commercial real estate, corporate and commercial, employment, rural land and business, and dispute resolution, with sector work in agriculture, forestry, healthcare, technology, and energy and natural resources. Its private client lawyers handle wills, succession and tax planning, trusts, executries, powers of attorney, family law and residential property.

Two managing partners and a chairman

Emma Gray and Ryan McKay have led the firm as joint managing partners since the summer of 2022. Gray is a partner and former head of the commercial real estate team; McKay, based in Aberdeen, previously led dispute resolution. Neil Robb, head of commercial real estate, became chairman in August 2025. He co-founded the Aberdeen firm Plenderleath Runcie in the late 1990s, which merged with Blackadders in 2019. The board also includes the heads of business services and private client.

Turnover up 21% in a year

Turnover rose 21% from £15.0m to £18.2m in the year to 31 March 2025, according to the LLP’s accounts at Companies House. Operating profit grew more than 64% to £5.8m, and profit before members’ remuneration rose from £4.0m to £6.2m. The firm employed an average of 164 staff, excluding members, and had 32 members. The year was the penultimate stage of its “5 by 25” strategy, which set a turnover goal of £25m and a 35% margin by the end of 2025–26, according to the members’ report.

Private client work drove much of the growth. The team prepared more than 700 wills in the year, over 400 of them for new clients, and acts for around 650 private and charitable trusts with more than £250m in assets under trust management. On the business side, the corporate team advises on employee ownership transactions and video games publishing and licensing deals.

Chambers High Net Worth 2026 ranks the firm Band 1 for private wealth law in Dundee and surrounds, a ranking it has held for 10 years, and Band 2 in Aberdeen. Chambers UK 2026 ranks its family team Band 2 in Scotland.