Paralegal in London

The 'extremely hardworking and diligent' property litigation practice at Herbert Smith Freehills LLP undertakes high value and complex disputes, ranging from landlord and tenant issues, transactional matters, to telecoms, nuisance, and trespass claims. Lauded for providing 'exceptionally thorough advice', Frances Edwards handles contractual disputes and real estate-related insolvency cases, while the 'brilliant' Matthew Weal acts for clients on rights of light and dilapidation claims. The 'very capable' Graeme Robertson is skilled in disputes concerning property fraud, rent review, and business lease renewals.

Main areas covered | We act for investors, developers, landlords, tenants, financiers and anyone else involved in commercial real estate on a range of disputes.

• 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.
• Securing an urgent injunction in under 36 hours from instruction for Gatwick Airport to prevent threatened protestor action from environmental activist groups.
• 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.
• 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.

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.

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.

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:

• Issuing/serving Court proceedings and liaising with the Court throughout the life of a claim.
• Assisting with drafting Court documents, instructions to counsel and settlement agreements.
• Checking and serving Schedules of Dilapidations and rent arrears letters.
• Disclosure/document management.
• Drafting letters such as pre-action correspondence, demands and forms of notices.
• Reviewing company and Land Registry searches (with training provided).
• Checking through/sorting evidence provided by clients or another party.
• Assisting with billing and other life of the matter actions.
• 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:

• Excellent academics including a Law degree or other undergraduate degree (ideally 2.1- or first-class honours).
• Familiarity with IT packages (Excel, Word, Internet, Outlook).