Associate

Our Real Estate Practice provides market-leading advice on transactions and disputes with real estate at the core. We assist developers, owners, private and institutional investors, corporates, lenders, and underwriters around the world in understanding industry trends and their impact on business. Our expertise extends to advising borrowers, lenders, and servicers across all types of domestic and international real estate financings. Clients trust us to manage the intricacies of their transactions and disputes, synthesising legal and commercial knowledge to provide counsel that translates into successful outcomes. By leveraging our deep understanding of real estate and legal frameworks, we help clients achieve their goals in a dynamic and evolving market.

We offer market-leading advice across all real estate asset classes. Trusted by developers, owners, investors, corporates, lenders and underwriters around the world to manage the intricacies of their transactions, we provide the legal and commercial knowledge required to achieve successful outcomes. In addition to our expert grasp of deal structures and real estate markets, we also provide advice across all areas of real estate lending, including loan origination, back leverage, syndication and development financing, and across the capital stack.

From the moment you join our practice, you can expect to be working alongside leading partners within our group. A collegial working environment, we place a strong emphasis on professional development and are keen to give associates significant responsibility. Highly varied, the projects you work on will often feature a cross-border dimension, giving you the benefit of working with—and learning from—lawyers across the firm’s international offices. Ideally positioned to integrate yourself into the firm’s global network, you will also be interacting regularly with clients and colleagues internationally. The work can be demanding but is always rewarding—both in terms of the opportunities to improve and expand your knowledge, and the satisfaction of contributing to your team’s success.

We are currently looking for a strong mid-level Real Estate Finance associate to join our London office. In addition to strong academic credentials, you should possess excellent technical skills and good knowledge and experience of the property sector. Bright and adaptable, you should be willing to work outside your comfort zone, advising on legal areas and asset classes that are not generally handled by a typical real estate finance practice. Strong oral and written communication skills will be significant assets, enabling you to explain complex legal concepts to non-lawyers, including overseas clients. Working on a relatively high volume of matters at any one time, you will need to be highly organized, adept at managing multiple workstreams and producing outstanding results within the short deadlines often demanded by our clients’ timings. Collaborative and cooperative, you should enjoy working as part of a team, but also demonstrate an independence of thought and action—proactively anticipating clients’ needs and exceeding their expectations by developing creative and original solutions to their problems.

Key Responsibilities

• Assisting on a wide range of cross border real estate finance transactions, on the sponsor and the lender side, and across the capital stack.
• Drafting, reviewing, and negotiating facility agreements, security documents and other real estate finance related documents.
• Managing transactions, including other White & Case offices and local counsel.
• Work closely with other members of the real estate finance team as well as colleagues from other practice groups, such as real estate and tax, to deliver integrated legal services to clients involved in cross-border transactions.
• Provide guidance to trainees / junior associates and support staff within the real estate finance practice group.
• Stay abreast of developments in real estate finance law across different jurisdictions, conducting legal research and analysis as needed to ensure that clients receive accurate and up-to-date advice.