Ashcroft adds finance partner to Glasgow team

International law firm Ashurst is adding a finance partner to its legal sourcing and business support services office in Glasgow.

Michael Lancaster, a partner at the firm since 2010, will relocate from Paris where he specialises in general banking and acquisition finance. He will work alongside banking lawyer Catherine McDonald, the office's first associate hire, who joined last month from Harper Macleod.

Opened last year, the Glasgow office, which is dedicated to supporting Ashurst's client-facing operations elsewhere, now comprises a 30 strong team of legal analysts who have worked on over 250 separate projects for major clients, supporting teams from all four of its global divisions and a number of international offices.

Glasgow managing partner Mike Polson commented: "We always had very bold ambitions for the Glasgow office, and finance in particular has played a major part in the successful launch of our services, with finance-related instructions coming from Paris and London as well as offices in Germany and Australia. Working alongside the 27 other offices in our network, we see tremendous scope for increasing the level of finance-related support we can provide to clients.

"Michael and Catherine will work alongside our legal analyst team and play a key role in their ongoing development. Our highly flexible delivery model using our legal analysts remains at the core of what we do and the addition of Michael and Catherine will allow us to grow the scale and scope of what support we can provide to the wider Ashurst network in response to client needs."

Mr Lancaster added: "The office has so far exceeded expectations and there are some major opportunities to increase the volume and range of finance work we can undertake. I am very much looking forward to working with Mike and the team to continue to broaden and develop our offering to the firm's clients."