Commercial property (or real estate) lawyers advise on transactions and act for a variety of domestic and international clients – including property investors and developers, governments, landowners and public sector bodies – on a wide range of property-related transactions, involving anything from offices and houses to retail developments and industrial units.

In general, the legal issues on which firms offer expertise include acquisitions and disposals of commercial properties, investments, landlord and tenant matters, lettings, sales, developments and contracts, insolvency planning applications, and environment laws and liabilities. A great deal of the work involves new ways of transacting, whether through financing, developing or co-investing.

Richard Larking is an associate solicitor at commercial Leeds firm Walker Morris, advising national and international clients. He recalls his path to law: “I left school when I was 16 without any educational qualifications to speak of. I spent seven years in the Royal Navy and while I was there I did an A-level in law and found it really interesting. It was something different to what I was used to.” He went on to read law at the University of Sheffield and managed to bag a scholarship to spend his second year in New York.

Richard did his training contract at Eversheds, during which he “did a seat in the recoveries unit which was effectively bulk litigation. Then I had seats in private client, commercial property and banking”. He enjoyed his commercial property seat because he got involved in some large, high-value transactions. “I remember being involved in a very big job for DuPont,” he recalls, "and the deal was big numbers.” But he did do some smaller jobs as well – like a residential conveyance for the friend of a property partner!

Richard actually qualified as a commercial contracts lawyer and did a secondment with Oftel, the former telecommunications regulatory body. But now he’s back into commercial property and enjoys the fact that “I’m a lot more autonomous now”. Thankfully though, “the support network is there if I need it, but I’m really left to my own devices”.

Richard’s workload usually centres on a dozen or so ongoing deals including property finance transactions and acquisitions, and sales of large commercial developments. He describes his typical day: “I get in around 8:00am and catch up with the jobs I was finishing off the previous afternoon or evening. The post comes in about 8:45am, so I look at that and deal with any urgent queries straight away. Otherwise, I just crack on with the ongoing jobs which will take me up to about 12:30pm depending on any meetings I have scheduled. During the day, calls are coming in, which may be queries from existing clients or new jobs. And then in the afternoon, I’ll continue to work on the ongoing jobs. Depending on how busy things are, I’ll be here until about 6:30pm.”

Richard’s client base is very varied. He explains: “I’ve got one particularly large client that is US-based but which has a large UK presence. I deal with their in-house legal team and they, in turn, deal with the company’s directors and senior managers, so I’m instructed by them too. Often it’s just making sure you’re asking the right questions to the right people and keeping everybody informed. At the other end of the scale I'm dealing with individuals who are constantly on the phone, making sure they know everything that’s going on in respect of their transaction. Often they’ll be developing a small number of industrial or retail units. We’ll get involved in the purchasing, building phase and construction aspects, as well as eventually selling the site or new development.” And although, as Richard notes, lawyers have a bad reputation for dealing with sites and buildings and not ever seeing them, “we often go on-site or view the buildings and the client tends to be very positive about that”.

Richard says commercial property is consistently busy, far more so than other practice areas which tend to be very busy one week and quieter the next. Also, commercial property people seem to be a select breed: “I usually find property people to be fairly balanced. They’re dealing with transactions that don’t happen very quickly, but they’re often working to very tight deadlines. It’s well understood what commercial property transactions entail and it’s quite a close-knit community.”

Richard admits that although a career in law has both ups and downs, “you remember the ups a lot more. The thing that I most enjoy about being a solicitor is the other people I deal with – not just the fellow professionals in my firm – who are genuinely excited about a job”. He explains that some individual clients rely on him a great deal: “You’re going to be working on transactions with people that are once in a lifetime opportunities so you’ve got to learn not to panic. You’re often dealing with tens of millions of pounds. You’ve got to rely on your experience and colleagues. If I stopped to think about the responsibility, it’d be quite worrying, but given that it happens every day, you become a bit more relaxed about it.”

That said, you can’t be too laid-back. Richard notes: “You need to be organised because you’re dealing with a large quantity of information and paper. And also, of course, you need to have good interpersonal skills.”

Richard remembers applying for training contracts a decade ago. One of the most important lessons he learnt then was to be commercially minded: “You need to have a real think about the commercial aspects of your experience and of the firm you’re applying to. Everyone’s got experience in some way. Even a job delivering newspapers has commercial aspects!”

In commercial property, comments Richard, you’re going to be busy: “You wouldn’t go into it to put your feet up. There’s great job satisfaction in that there’s loads of transactions to get involved in at different levels. And I think in commercial property you’re given a great degree of responsibility early on and, in the right support environment, that’s great.”

Richard’s final piece of advice is this: “Nothing can prepare you for what you do on a day-to-day basis (other than to a small degree the LPC and previous work experience). Being a solicitor is what you make of it. You'll get out what you put in.”