JOB DESCRIPTION
About Herbert Smith Freehills
As one of the world’s leading law firms, we advise many of the largest and most ambitious organisations across all major regions of the globe. With over 5,000 people, including 3,100 lawyers and over 2,000 business services professionals, operating from our global network of offices across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and North America, Herbert Smith Freehills is at the heart of the new global business landscape providing premium quality, full-service legal advice.
We recognise that the success of our business and our clients relies on the skills, knowledge and ideas of all our people. Our environment is one in which high performance is expected, in return, we will provide you with rewards and opportunities tailored to your personal and professional goals.
The Opportunity
Key Internal Relationships:
1. Real Estate Partners and Associates
Practice Group / Team
Legal 500 Editorial commentary:
2. Main areas covered | We act for investors, developers, landlords, tenants, financiers and anyone else involved in commercial real estate on a range of disputes.
Recent work
3. Advising British Land on legal solutions to potential development constraints to the redevelopment and refurbishment of sites and buildings within the Broadgate campus around Liverpool Street Station
4. Securing an urgent injunction in under 36 hours from instruction for Gatwick Airport to prevent threatened protestor action from environmental activist groups in their so-called "summer of disruption".
5. Successfully defending a claim from Macdonald Hotels Limited against Bank of Scotland plc for alleged breach of good faith terms of lending facilities and alleged forced sale of properties (value: c£120m), including securing an order for indemnity costs.
6. Acting for a wide range of the strongest names in the real estate sector including Brookfield, Canary Wharf, URW/Westfield, Lendlease, Cain International, Almacantar, Hammerson, Blackstone, Citi, Madison Square Garden, The Board of Trustees of the Tate Modern and Aberdeen on a mixture of matters ranging from the very large through to portfolio work.
7. Our team is noted for its emphasis on Big Ticket disputes and in recent years that has included acting for Canary Wharf in its dispute with the administrators of Lehman Brothers, TAG Farnborough Airport on a large CPO matter, Native Land on a leading case on Business Rates, Bank of Scotland on alleged forced sale of properties and on many other client-critical matters.
Directory rankings include | Ranked band 2 in the Legal 500 for Property Litigation
8. As well as big ticket work, our real estate disputes team act on a wide range of areas including development-related matters such as contested site assembly, rights of light and other easements and possession issues, insolvency, transactional disputes, professional negligence, restrictive covenants, business rates, disputes on Compulsory Purchase Orders and other compensation issues, Telecommunications Act issues and leasehold enfranchisement, all which helps manage disputes.
9. We can also assist with all types of landlord and tenant disputes, including business lease renewals, rent review issues, lease termination, dilapidations claims and service charge disputes.
Key Responsibilities:
10. Issuing/serving Court proceedings and liaising with the Court throughout the life of a claim
11. Assisting with drafting Court documents, instructions to counsel and settlement agreements
12. Checking and serving Schedules of Dilapidations and rent arrears letters
13. Disclosure/document management
14. Drafting letters such as pre-action correspondence, demands and forms of notices
15. Reviewing company and Land Registry searches (with training provided)
16. Checking through/sorting evidence provided by clients or another party
17. Assisting with billing and other life of the matter actions
18. Generally working with senior and junior members of the real estate disputes team so that they have an extra resource to enable them to turn asset management work around swiftly for clients.
Qualifications / Skills / Experience:
19. Excellent academics including a Law degree or other undergraduate degree (ideally 2.1- or first-class honours)
20. Familiarity with IT packages (Excel, Word, Internet, Outlook)
Team
London HR Alison Gent Level 1, Real Estate
Working Pattern
Full time
Location
London
Contract type
Permanent Contract
Diversity & Inclusion
We are committed to attracting people from all backgrounds and creating a respectful and inclusive culture where everyone thrives. We see this as essential to our success, including our ability to innovate and achieve sustained high performance. This is a key part of our Values—Human, Bold, and Outstanding.