Shirley Wyles

Career

Shirley Wyles is a partner based at our Edinburgh office. She heads our Scottish property team, dealing with a wide range of claims and cases on property damage.

With more than 20 years of experience, Shirley is highly skilled in all aspects of property damage and insurance litigation. She has particular expertise in claims and cases involving fire, flooding as well as drainage, geotechnical and subsidence issues and product liability.

Shirley is regularly instructed to provide advice in complex insurance policy response and coverage matters.

Shirley acts on behalf of most major insurers as well as corporate and public body clients in both defending and pursuing litigation at both the Court of Session and in Scotland’s sheriff courts. She also has a broad range of experience of ADR, including arbitrations.

She has niche expertise in Scottish water and sewerage law having acted for Scotland’s only water and sewerage provider for over 20 years.

Shirley regularly presents to clients and market contacts on legal issues within her areas of specialism and has had articles published in the Scotsman newspaper and insurance industry publications.

Shirley acted for a contractor in the defence in litigation arising from a fire at a building of national importance where losses are estimated to be in excess of £100 million.

She acted on behalf of the successful defender in Cruden Buildings and Renewals v Scottish Water 2017 where a high value claim by a developer was struck out due to lack of title to sue, the developer not owning or leasing the land that was affected by a sewage spill.

She runs Scottish subrogated recovery schemes for a number of insurers. Her team handles volume recovery instructions with a focus on swift economic solutions. At the other end of the scale, she has successfully pursued a variety of complex large loss recoveries, including a claim for over £4 million pounds in respect of a boiler explosion at corporate client’s production facility.