Graeme McCormick

It's not often a man can claim to give birth but Graeme McCormick went through a gestation period of only three months from his conception of Conveyancing Direct in late 1997 to  its  birth in February 1998 when for the first time the Scottish public benefited from the most competitive house buying and selling legal fees in Scotland.

Graeme has been a domestic property lawyer, estate agent and mortgage arranger since  1978  in the  West of Scotland but felt that new technology and the massive expansion of  home ownership in Scotland was an opportunity to reduce the costs of all consumers while giving an efficient service.

As  Graeme is  want to say: "If you are a seller you want your money on time and if you are a buyer you want your keys on time.  If the system fails all involved are deemed failures regardless of who is at fault."

Graeme left his cosy partnership in a successful Glasgow firm on the best of terms and decided to follow his dream.  One of the conditions of his departure was that none of his clients was to  be enticed to go with him.

He was starting from scratch with a family to feed and bills to  pay and  a faith that his dream would  succeed. The Susan Boyle of the Conveyancing World!

Sabina Donegan, his assistant in his previous office, foolishly agreed to join Graeme in this Conveyancing Direct venture.

Within three months of their resignations from the previous employment they found, converted and furnished  premises, engaged ten staff, developed a case management system, created an advertising campaign including ground breaking television coverage and open the doors to the public.

Graeme recalls: "the first day was nerve racking because we didn't know who would call."

Fortunately in the first week  the phone was always busy and has continued to be so as Conveyancing Direct has developed into the largest dedicated domestic conveyancing practice in Scotland.

Graeme who has two grown up (sometimes!) daughters, lives by Loch Lomond where he plays second fiddle to his wife, Haggis the dog,Basil the parrot, Bubbles the pig and eight chickens.  His interests  include contesting national and local  elections for the SNP,  gardening, architecture, running, ski-ing and English Church music.