MFMac and Axiom Advocates join forces as legal sponsors for Scottish Construction Summit

For both organisations, the decision to co-sponsor was less about hedging their bets and more about a natural fit. Jennifer McKay, partner at MFMac, told SCN editor Kieran Findlay that the pairing reflects two firms that already work closely together and share a common identity in the Scottish market.

“There is very much a natural synergy between our two brands,” Jennifer McKay explains. “We are both Scottish brands, very well established brands, and very much we see ourselves as leaders in the construction field.” Being embedded in the industry, she says, made the joint sponsorship feel like an obvious step.

Gavin Walker, chair at Axiom Advocates, agrees, pointing out that while Axiom has a presence south of the border, Scotland remains the firm’s home and its principal source of work. Pairing with a firm of MFMac’s standing in that market, he says, was a straightforward call.

The event itself was the other draw. Building on a strong showing last year at the University of Strathclyde, the Summit’s move to the SEC Campus, along with a speaker line-up drawing from the Scottish Government, the Scottish Futures Trust and major public and private sector players, made it a platform both firms wanted to be part of.

Asked about what specifically prompted the move now, Jennifer McKay points to three forces converging on the construction and legal sectors at once: the arrival of artificial intelligence, a difficult macroeconomic backdrop, and a skills shortage that has dogged the industry for years. All three, she added, made this the right moment for face-to-face conversation with the industry rather than sponsorship for its own sake.

For Gavin Walker, the appeal is more fundamental. Advocates, unlike solicitors, rarely get to meet the end client. “The solicitors are our clients and we get to see the end users only through the solicitors, and that’s right and that’s proper,” he says – but it means events like the Summit, complete with a stand and direct contact with attendees, represent something genuinely outside Axiom’s usual comfort zone.

Artificial intelligence emerged as one of the interview’s dominant themes. Jennifer McKay is candid that AI represents “a huge challenge for us all, no matter what industry you’re in,” and that its impact on the legal profession specifically is already being felt – not least in questions over what the future holds for junior lawyers, who have traditionally cut their teeth on legal research now increasingly assisted, or replaced, by AI tools.

Her starting point is data control. Before firms can think about deploying AI to create efficiencies for clients, she argues, they need to have their own data management and confidentiality obligations firmly in hand. Only once that foundation is in place can firms begin passing on the benefits of AI-driven efficiency to clients – something she believes is particularly achievable in faster, more informal routes to dispute resolution such as adjudication.

But she is equally clear that AI is “not a panacea,” warning of the risk of hallucinated outputs and stressing that the human element in legal work cannot be dialled down, even as the technology advances.

Gavin Walker’s perspective from the bar reinforces the point. Courts are increasingly encountering fabricated case citations and non-existent authorities in written submissions, particularly – though not exclusively – from party litigants, and the judiciary has begun taking a harder line in response.

His concern runs deeper than fabricated citations, though: a great deal of the groundwork on submissions and pleadings is currently done by junior colleagues, and he worries about what happens to that training ground if AI starts absorbing the work. His hope, and his belief, is that it won’t happen. AI-generated text, he added, “doesn’t read very well sometimes” – repetitive, formulaic, and no substitute for a skilled human writer. As he puts it, a good writer is worth ten AIs.

Asked whether the two firms’ perspectives on construction disputes diverge, both were clear that the roles are complementary rather than overlapping. MFMac’s solicitors are typically involved from an early stage, working directly with clients to resolve disputes proactively or drafting the contracts that shape a project from the outset. Advocates like Gavin Walker, by contrast, are brought in written submissions and oral argument before the court.

Gavin Walker describes the relationship as symbiotic, and is frank about why the split works. Advocates, he notes, are largely insulated from the client-facing demands, the phone calls, the hand-holding, that solicitors have to juggle alongside preparing for court. He has seen various attempts over the years at combining the two roles through solicitor-advocate models, and remains sceptical that trying to do both jobs well is realistic in practice.

On misconceptions around construction disputes, Gavin Walker resists a single answer, insisting that no two disputes are alike. Some resolve in a matter of weeks through straightforward negotiation; others run for years. Adjudication, introduced to speed up the process, has reshaped the market over the past two decades, but Walker notes it doesn’t always deliver the quick resolution it promises, particularly on high-value final account disputes.

Jennifer McKay expands on this: adjudication works well when used as intended – a fast, relatively rough form of interim justice that lets parties move on with cash flow secured. But for large final account or defect disputes, an interim binding decision often leaves one party sufficiently unhappy that the matter ends up heading to full determination anyway, raising real questions about whether adjudication is always the right forum. The comparative underuse of arbitration in the sector, she adds, is a live and open question too.

Their advice to contractors and developers keen to avoid disputes altogether is simple: come in early. Both stress the value of early intervention – resolving issues before they escalate into entrenched positions – and the availability of early opinions on contractual interpretation before problems take hold.

On whether disputes are rising or falling, Jennifer McKay senses a modest recent dip, though she’s unsure of the exact cause. She points to greater use of claims consultants and a broader industry appetite for resolving issues without involving lawyers as possible factors, while stopping short of calling it a significant trend.

Beyond the sponsorship itself, both Jennifer McKay and Gavin Walker frame their involvement in the Summit around relationship-building – strengthening existing connections with contractors, consultants and others in the industry, and forging new ones, while getting a clearer sense of the challenges and opportunities those in the room are facing.

For Gavin Walker, there’s a specific ambition: for contractors and consultants to start asking their solicitors for “an Axiom advocate” by name, on the strength of a reputation built partly through events like this one. Axiom, he notes, is typically well represented across the major multi-party construction cases heard in the Court of Session – a track record he’d like to see translate into direct recognition among the wider industry, not just among the solicitors who instruct the firm.

Both Jennifer McKay and Gavin Walker will take part personally, with the current plan built around a series of short, topic-led sessions – likely around fifteen minutes apiece – featuring speakers from both firms. Gavin Walker is keen to avoid anything resembling a dry legal update. “It’s not gonna be a construction law update… that’s boring,” he says, adding, with a nod to MFMac’s marketing resources, that Axiom is happy to lean on its co-sponsor’s expertise in shaping the sessions.

On subject matter, Jennifer McKay flags no shortage of live issues to draw on: the Commercial Payments Bill and its implications for retention, the continuing relevance of the Building Safety Act, recent case law, and – inevitably – the perennially divisive topic of prescription, an issue she says the industry still needs to stay across given the significance of recent decisions in the area.

With the Scottish construction industry gathering in one place, both firms see the Summit as an opportunity too good to pass up. As Gavin McKay puts it, to be seen among the “big players” in an event built around the market they call home.