Market-leading public sector lawyers trusted by public bodies and their private sector partners to help you rise to the unique challenges of government, from the most complex programmes to day-to-day policy delivery
The government’s vision for reform of public services and sustainable public finances places new challenges on public bodies and their private sector partners. It is more important than ever that public bodies and their partners can trust legal advisers to understand these challenges and to work side by side to respond to them.
For over 30 years, our market-leading public sector lawyers have been providing strategic, commercially focused advice on public sector law to meet the challenges of the day.
We provide intelligent solutions and public sector legal advice for complex, innovative and high-profile projects, inquiries and challenges, including those with political, newsworthy or public interest dimensions. We have an in-depth understanding of the status, powers and functions of departments and other central government bodies, as well as the devolved powers of the Senedd Cymru (Welsh Parliament), Scottish Parliament and Northern Ireland Assembly.
Our team includes former senior civil service, devolved authority and local government lawyers, as well as secondees, offering first-hand experience of the public sector and expertise in how to successfully deliver projects at all levels of government.
Our expertise includes advising on:
- Public procurement and subsidy control
- Commercial contracts
- Complex projects, including public-private partnerships, alternative delivery models and financing
- Procurement challenges, judicial reviews and other dispute resolution
- Public inquiries
- Competition, regulatory risk, and compliance
- Administrative and public law
- Outsourcing and service transformation
- Privatisation and nationalisation
- Corporatisation and governance of public sector bodies
- Banking and finance
- Technology and intellectual property
- Freedom of information and data protection
- Employment and pensions
- Planning and compulsory purchase
- Development and regeneration
- Property and facilities management
- Business transformation and restructuring
We are appointed to Crown Commercial Service (CCS) RM6360 Lot 1: Core Legal Services, Lot 2: Major Projects and Complex Advice and Lot 5: Rail Legal Services, to provide legal services to UK central Government departments, public sector bodies and other related entities.
We are also appointed as a preferred supplier to Lot 1: Full Service, Lot 2: General Service and Lot 3: Rail of the CCS Wider Public Sector Legal Services Panel (RM6240) and the wider Rail Legal Panel (RM6204).
About Burges Salmon
We are an ambitious, sustainable and inclusive firm ensuring our clients, people and wider communities flourish. Down-to-earth, straightforward and strategically switched-on, our clients benefit from our specialism in complex legal areas and our deep sector expertise.
Everything we do is driven by our core values:
- Ambition: We strive to be the best in everything that we do. Many of our lawyers are recognised as experts in the sector.
- Collaboration: We provide a seamless service for our clients. We recruit people who make work an enjoyable experience, for themselves and those around them.
- Commitment: We expect hard work from our people, but in return, we continually invest in them by providing development opportunities at every stage of their career.
- Fairness: We have an open culture and are committed to providing equal opportunities. We value diversity and encourage applications from the widest pool of candidates.
- Quality: We pride ourselves on the excellent service we provide, doing high-quality work for high-quality clients.
Award winning employer
We offer a genuinely different working environment from other firms. We achieved Platinum ‘Investors in People’ and were named in The Times Top 50 Employers for Gender Diversity three years running.
We are also ranked in the Top 75 UK employers in the Social Mobility Foundation Index. We have been awarded the title of “Best Law Firm to Work At” by RollOnFriday four years running, from 2022 to 2025, an accolade based entirely on employee feedback.
We were also awarded the prestigious title of Law Firm of the Year at the Legal Business Awards 2025, which celebrates excellence across the legal profession.
In a rapidly changing world, our commitment to environmental sustainability, and our social, inclusion and diversity responsibilities, are central to that purpose – enabling us to support our clients with a response to these opportunities.
