Allen & Overy

"I had contact with clients on my very first day in real estate".

The degree of responsibility and client contact I have been given during my time in real estate has by far exceeded my expectations and proven to be an extremely valuable learning experience.

I had contact with clients on my very first day in the department, and since then I have worked on a variety of deals, involving both 'pure property' work and real estate funds, which often involves working alongside different departments in the firm (commonly tax, private equity and banking) and across jurisdictions.  The law student myth that real estate just involves slow paced, conveyancing work and trawling through leases was dispelled within hours of joining the department!

One of the things that has made my time in real estate so interesting has been working with such a range of clients with very different personalities - from small tenants to sophisticated fund managers - and in turn adapting the way you communicate with them according to their background knowledge and commercial needs.  As a result of this no two pieces of work ever seem to be the same.

In my most recent deal I became closely involved in negotiating the documents for a Guernsey registered, European real estate fund.  This involved responding to enquiries from major investors and liaising with the Placement Agent promoting the Fund to investors, the Fund Manager and the Fund's lawyers in Guernsey, in order to agree the documents between all parties concerned.  I became so familiar with the deal and the people involved that I was asked to co-ordinate the closing.  This involved ironing out last minute problems, liaising with lawyers at other firms (who often were considerably more senior than me), checking the documents had been validly signed and ensuring that all parties were happy to transfer the monies they had committed to the Fund, which ran into hundreds of millions of Euro.  Closing the deal having had this degree of involvement was a real adrenalin rush and gave me a sense of job satisfaction that I certainly would not have felt had I just been on the sidelines.

Being solely responsible for a particular transaction is a valuable learning experience because it forces you to address problems you perhaps would not have encountered when assisting on a matter.  This responsibility however has always been backed up by a fantastic support network, not only from my Trainer and other Associates, but also the Partners in the department, who I have always found to have time to talk through any concerns I have.

I have also learnt about the less exciting aspects of managing transactions, such as registering a new client and billing, but as a result of all of these experiences, I now feel confident that as newly qualified solicitor I could manage a matter from start to finish.