Solicitor/Associate - Commercial Real Estate in Manchester

The DAC Beachcroft Commercial Real Estate team comprises 50 lawyers working across all offices – London, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds and Glasgow. It forms part of a wider real estate department comprising 135 lawyers including specialists in construction, planning, residential, and a dedicated portfolio asset management practice. This role is for a lawyer to work in Manchester, Newcastle, or Bristol as part of a cross office team focusing on development and corporate occupier work and non-health public sector.

The team currently comprises 4 Partner/Legal Directors and 8 lawyers at various levels. The client portfolio provides opportunities to work on national strategic projects, traditional investment sales and purchases and leasing - for real estate developers, large corporates and funds, government departments, local authorities, universities and corporate occupiers. Often our work provides the opportunity to work cross cluster with colleagues in planning, construction, procurement, finance, corporate and commercial. Our team is well established and, due to renewed panel appointments, new client wins and increased levels of work, is looking to grow. High quality work and supervision will be provided. The successful candidate will work with the team in helping to deliver our service and grow our business.

Key Responsibilities

• An expanding client list and increasing volumes of work mean that new team members are needed to play an essential, valued role in delivering the time-critical, high quality service expected by our clients.
• Working as part of dedicated client teams you will:

• Work closely with the seniors in the team having responsibility for key tasks in large scale or high value projects, as well as generally supporting the wider transaction.
• Where appropriate, lead on transactions (following training and supervision) and act as primary contact for clients on a day to day basis providing them with commercially focused legal advice.
• Work closely to client protocols and processes.
• Comply with the required standards for file opening, conflict management, and financial management of files, billing regimes etc. as well as the specific reporting or other management requirements of individual clients.
• Handle confidential information in line with the firm's data security protocols.
• Make an appropriate contribution to non fee-earning activity e.g. knowledge sharing, training, client seminars, business development and/or client care and relationship management.

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

• Successful candidates will be enthusiastic and dedicated, have a strong work ethic and be keen to seize the opportunity to further progress their legal career by developing their technical skills and commercial awareness in a friendly, collaborative environment.
• Key skills include:

• A 2-5yr PQE solicitor with a strong academic record.
• Experience from a national/regional firm in commercial real estate: for example landlord and tenant and commercial property acquisition and disposals.
• Experience in all aspects of commercial property legal advice, including sales, acquisitions, varying landlord & tenant matters, due diligence and reporting.
• Strong technical skills and an ability to understand and work through complex issues with assistance.
• A demonstrable ability to adopt a commercial perspective rather than an ‘academic’ approach to legal issues.
• Ability to operate with a high level of self sufficiency, combined with an awareness of the boundaries of own competence/authority.
• A team oriented and collegiate way of working including experience of having supervised or managed more junior colleagues, in transactional matters and generally.
• Experience of and success with business development and client care or relationship management activities.
• Confident communicator with an ability to develop relationships internally, as well as being able to undertake client marketing and influence at all levels.
• An ability to deal confidently and professionally with clients on day to day issues, building up strong relationships.
• Strong organisation skills to ensure a pragmatic and methodical approach to handling a variety of commercial property matters simultaneously, through an IT case management system.
• A positive, flexible approach towards the implementation of new initiatives.
• An ability to handle a complex and constantly changing workload and to work under pressure and within tight timescales if needed.
• Attention to detail and a concern for quality.