​Mairi has specialised in pensions since qualifying as a lawyer in 2005. Following seven years in the pensions team at DWF, Mairi worked at Pinsent Masons LLP for nine years (latterly as a Legal Director) where she was a key member of their pensions team providing legal advice and professional trustee services. She then joined  Brodies as a Pensions Legal Director. Mairi has most recently worked at Burges Salmon in Edinburgh as a Pensions Professional Support Lawyer.

Mairi has a broad and varied range of pensions expertise, including general trustee and employer advisory work, and assisting on the pension aspects of corporate transactions. As well as her client advisory work, Mairi acted as a professional pensions trustee for five schemes during her time at Pinsent Masons. Mairi also specialised in public sector pensions, covering the pension aspects of public sector outsourcing, bulk and TUPE transfers.

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Mairi’s key experience includes: 

• Acting as professional pensions trustee to various Scottish-based defined benefit pension schemes. This included: negotiating triennial valuations and deficit repair contributions with the sponsoring employers; negotiating and agreeing employer exits and the terms of the related flexible apportionment arrangements; undertaking service provider selection processes and transitioning to new providers; negotiating and agreeing bespoke investment management arrangements; preparing schemes for buy-in of liabilities with an insurer, including instructing GMP reconciliation, equalisation and data cleansing; instructing and liaising on the preparation of benefit specifications by legal advisers, with a view to insurer buy-out of the defined benefit schemes.

• Leading projects on behalf of the pension scheme trustees on transfers of  private defined benefit pension scheme to the Principal Civil Service Scheme.

• Acting as the point of contact on behalf of the trustees of a well-known defence contractor’s defined benefit scheme in liaising with the Pensions Regulator regarding the terms of a long-term funding agreement entered into by the trustees with the parent company and providing information and explaining the legalities and trigger points of the agreement to the Regulator.

• Advising the trustees of a defined benefit pension scheme of a well-known international global packaging company in relation to funding negotiations with the UK sponsoring employer and the terms of a corporate guarantee from the US parent.

Mairi is based in Glasgow and previously attained the PMI Retirement Provision Certificate.  She is now working towards her professional trustee qualifications and is also a qualified Mental Health First Aider.

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Mairi was ranked by Legal 500 UK 2022 as a “Next Generation Partner”

“Straightforward to deal with, gets to the point and understands the issues quickly”, Chambers 2017​

mairi.carlin@propensions.co.uk