Burges Salmon LLP

Burges Salmon is an ambitious, sustainable and inclusive firm that ensures its clients, people and wider communities flourish.

Burges Salmon competes at the top of the legal market, providing sophisticated clients with a wide range of services, often at pivotal moments when astute legal advice and commercial insight are essential. Working side-by-side with clients, the firm shapes its thinking around their needs, focusing on the markets and areas of expertise where it has knowledge and experience to deliver the right solutions when it matters most.

Advising clients ranging from large corporates and public sector bodies through to entrepreneurial businesses and private individuals, Burges Salmon is trusted to support them across the full spectrum of legal needs, from everyday matters to business-critical issues.

The firm’s clients include organisations such as The John Lewis Partnership, The Financial Services Compensation Scheme, FirstGroup, HSBC Bank plc, Virgin, Costain Group, The Crown Commercial Service, Babcock International Group and Highways England.

With offices in Bristol, Edinburgh, London and Dublin, Burges Salmon operates across the UK and internationally. Its lawyers are qualified to practise in all three UK legal jurisdictions—England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland—and the firm collaborates globally with a select network of like-minded independent law firms.

Burges Salmon is confident in its model and its vision to be the market-leading independent UK law firm that provides the best proposition for its clients and its people. In a rapidly changing world, clients instruct Burges Salmon because the firm offers a different experience: unrivalled expertise, excellent service and exceptional value.

Culture

The firm’s collaborative and cohesive culture underpins the quality of its work and client service.

In 2025, Burges Salmon was named RollonFriday’s ‘Best Law Firm to Work At’ for the fourth consecutive year, with survey respondents highlighting the firm’s unique and exceptional working environment, deeply rooted in delivering an exceptional service to its clients, where values of openness, inclusivity and support are championed.

Innovation

In 2024, Burges Salmon launched its multidimensional Digital Enablement Programme, bringing together and leveraging GenAI, data, processes and technology, together with internal expertise, to enhance the firm’s client service delivery offering and enable it to continuously improve and adapt for the future. The firm recognises the power of technology and the importance of keeping people at the centre of its solutions. This human-first approach saw the firm invited to speak at the prestigious Microsoft Ignite Global Conference in front of a global audience of 2.5 million people.

Diversity and Inclusion

Burges Salmon cultivates an open, collaborative and inclusive culture where diversity and inclusion are integral to the firm’s strategy. It has a Diversity Taskforce working on the development of its Ethnic Diversity Action Plan, focusing on key areas such as talent attraction, development and retention. In partnership with the University of Bristol Law School, Burges Salmon also launched its Diversity Mentoring Scheme to address the underrepresentation of minority ethnic groups in the legal profession.

The firm is committed to social mobility and has pioneered the introduction of legal apprenticeships with 8 solicitors qualified through the route to date.

Burges Salmon is also a Disability Confident Committed employer, an accredited Living Wage Employer, and a signatory to multiple charters including the Law Society Diversity and Inclusion Charter, Bristol Equality Charter, Women in Business Charter and Race at Work Charter.

Responsible business

Responsible Business is part of life at Burges Salmon and the firm constantly pushes and tests itself to be the most sustainable, diverse and inclusive firm it can be. Recognised in the 2024 Lamp House Annual Report, it collaborates with people, clients, and communities to deliver meaningful social value. The firm pursues environmental goals through continued science-based carbon reduction targets, efficiency gains and investment in high-quality carbon offsetting projects.

In the past year, it invested £424,000 in communities, achieved a 52% volunteering rate, and partnered with over 60 charities. Burges Salmon also retained its Platinum ‘We invest in people’ accreditation, placing it in the top 5% of all organisations assessed by Investors in People.

Headcount Figures

• • Senior Partner: Ross Fairley
  • Managing Partner: Roger Bull
  • Number of Partners: 126
  • Number of Other Fee-Earners: 453
  • Total Staff: 1,200

Sectors

Agriculture and estates: Tom Hewitt

Built environment: Ross Polkinghorne

Defence: Keith Beattie

Energy and utilities: James Phillips

Financial services: Martin Cook

Health, care and life sciences: Patrick Parkin

Hotels and leisure: Rupert Weston

Infrastructure: Stuart McMillan

Private wealth: Suzanna Harvey

Public sector: John Houlden

Technology: Jeremy Dickerson

Transport: Chris Simms

Services

Banking and finance: Graham Soar

Commercial and technology: Helen Scott-Lawler

Construction and engineering: Steven James

Corporate and M&A: Nick Graves

Corporate crime, investigations and inquiries: Guy Bastable

Dispute resolution: Andrew Burnette

Employment: Luke Bowery

Environment: Michael Barlow

ESG and Net Zero: Michael Barlow

Intellectual property and media: Jeremy Dickerson

Pensions and lifetime savings: Richard Knight

Planning and compulsory purchase: Gary Soloman

Private client and family law: Jim Aveline

Public procurement advisory and disputes: John Houlden

Real estate: Rick Read

Restructuring and insolvency: Emily Scaife

Tax: John Barnett