Thompsons Solicitors and Solicitor Advocates are pleased to announce the assumption of Derek McLean into the partnership and the appointment of Victoria Aquino, Jayne Crawford and Jennifer St. Clair as associates.

Thompsons' success has been achieved through three of the firm's fundamental and guiding principles:

• developing and investing in its staff;
• consolidating existing client bases and constantly improving services to those clients and;
• growth into new areas through winning new clients.

These three principles are again evident in these latest announcements.

Derek McLean joined Thompsons as a trainee in 2003 in their Glasgow office and gained extensive experience in Pursuer reparation work, dealing principally with Court of Session cases. In May 2009 he took up his current position as manager of the firm’s specialist RTA team in Edinburgh, which has made a very significant contribution to the firm’s ongoing success.

Victoria Aquino joined Thompsons as a trainee in 2004 and works as a Personal Injury Solicitor within the Accident Team. She has built up considerable experience of dealing with a complete range of personal injury actions. She continues to deal with a range of accident cases including those involving complexity and high value and she has successfully litigated many Court of Session cases.

Jayne Crawford joined Thompsons as a trainee in 2003 and specialises in personal injury law. Her case handling responsibilities include pursuing claims across the whole personal injury spectrum such as road traffic accidents, fatal cases, workplace injuries, criminal injury claims and disease work. Through experience Jayne has developed particular expertise in dealing with high value personal injury claims.Jenny St.Clair is a personal injury lawyer and works in Thompsons Litigation Lung Disease Team. Jenny joined Thompsons in August 2002. She specialises in asbestos disease cases and has an interest in other work related respiratory diseases. She has been the instructing solicitor in two recent asbestosis cases in the Court of Session, which set new levels of damages and tested key medical issues.Frank Maguire and Syd Smith, joint senior partners, said: "We are delighted with these new appointments. These staff are taking up key roles within the firm and have demonstrated a strong commitment to the clients we act for.”