Dispute resolution – graduate recruitment – meet the teams – episode 3
10 October 2023
Podcasts and videos
Counsel Bryan Shacklady, senior associate Ashleigh Carr and trainee Joe May join podcast host Miri Stickland to give insight into the Dispute Resolution team at Forsters. They explain how no two days are the same and highlight the personal and professional skills needed to be part of this collaborative department. The team also stress the importance of attention to detail within their work, and provide examples of the unexpected topics they have had to become experts on.
More Than Law Podcast host, Miri Stickland, is joined by various guests as they discuss the goings on in their departments, and what their days normally look like.
Episode 1 – Construction
Senior associates Daniel Burr and Dan Cudlipp and associate Lauren Hepburn join podcast host Miri Stickland to shed some light on the Construction team at Forsters. They discuss the best and worst parts of being a construction lawyer, exciting clients, and an average day in the life. The team also highlight the differences between contentious and non-contentious work and the key skills needed for success in each side of the team.
Non-contentious Tagline: The paperwork for the brickwork.
Contentious Tagline: Building your case when your building falls down.
Partner Anthony Goodmaker, associate Anna Penn and trainee Cameron Turnbull join podcast host Miri Stickland to explain why Forsters’ Commercial Real Estate department is more than just easements and covenants. The team run through an average day, give insight into the firm’s culture and identify key skills. They also share their own motivations for qualifying into CRE, and highlight the importance of keeping an open mind throughout your training contract as you may be surprised by the seat you enjoy the most.
Counsel Bryan Shacklady, senior associate Ashleigh Carr and trainee Joe May join podcast host Miri Stickland to give insight into the Dispute Resolution team at Forsters. They explain how no two days are the same and highlight the personal and professional skills needed to be part of this collaborative department. The team also stress the importance of attention to detail within their work, and provide examples of the unexpected topics they have had to become experts on.
Graduate recruitment – equality, diversity and inclusion | Smita Edwards, Emily Holdstock, Emma Cooper
10 October 2022
Podcasts and videos
Senior Partner Smita Edwards, Graduate Recruitment partner Emily Holdstock and Graduate Recruitment officer Emma Cooper join Miri Stickland to discuss why diversity and inclusion is so important to Forsters, the preconceptions that applicants may have about the firm and why they should look past them, our ED&I strategy and initiatives the Graduate Recruitment team are taking to promote diversity.
Is there a ‘right’ answer to the questions you are asked at interview? Partner, Katherine Ekers, and trainees, Tatiana Kinsky and Oliver James, join podcast host, Miri Stickland, to give their insights.
Is only work experience in law firms relevant to a training contract application?
Graduate Recruitment partner Emily Holdstock and trainees Ellen Jones, Candice Johnson and Joe May join podcast host Miri Stickland to discuss how work and volunteering experience in other sectors can also be a huge asset.
Does showing commercial awareness really mean faithfully memorising the contents of the Economist each week?
Podcast host Miri Stickland is joined by partner Katherine Ekers and trainees Phoebe Jackson and Annalisa Gardner to discuss the tricky issue of how to show commercial awareness.
Are there unwritten rules you need to follow in training contract interviews?
Partner Katherine Ekers and trainees Ellen Jones and Cameron Turnbull join podcast host Miri Stickland to discuss what to wear and whether to eat the biscuits offered!
Do you need to start off knowing exactly which practice area you want to qualify into?
Graduate Recruitment partner Emily Holdstock, newly qualified solicitor Tamsin Collingridge and trainee Molly Haynes join podcast host Miri Stickland to discuss whether it is OK to be undecided.
Dr Hannah Wakeford, lecturer in Astrophysics in the School of Physics at the University of Bristol, and senior associate Laura Haworth join podcast host Miri Stickland to talk about the issue of space junk in Earth’s increasingly crowded orbit, its potential impact on planetary environments and shared lessons for sustainability in space and in our built environment.
Marking the start of World Alzheimer’s Month, an annual event raising awareness and challenging stigma surrounding Alzheimer’s and dementia, podcast hosts Miri Stickland and Robert Linden Laird Craig are joined by partner Amy France and counsel Mike Armstrong to talk about the advantages of forward planning for later life, the importance of having difficult conversations at the right time and the evolution of later living homes in the UK.
Reducing the graft of drafting: Miri Stickland speaks with Clarilis on the upturn of LegalTech
16 February 2022
Views
Knowledge Development Lawyer, Miri Stickland, of Forsters’ ‘trailblazing real estate practice’, recently spoke with Clarilis about the dramatic upturn in the use of LegalTech for commercial property transactions.
“The real estate industry itself has been transformed by technology” Miri points out. “We have smart buildings which know when to turn the air-con and lights on, and we’re starting to see tenants pay their rent in crypto-currency. The way in which we provide legal services must keep pace with this. So, although not all the new technology we’ve seen will stay the distance, there are products that really increase speed and efficiency, and which can be flexed to meet changing demands without compromising on quality. These are the ones that are going to stay the course.”
Graduate Recruitment Partner, Emily Holdstock, and More Than Law Podcast host, Miri Stickland, are joined by various guests as they discuss some of the common myths and frequently asked questions surrounding training contracts and the application process. With more content released weekly make sure you bust all of the myths with our Graduate Recruitment team as we close in on our 2022 Summer Vacation Scheme deadline at the end of January 2022.
Episode 1
Do you need to start off knowing exactly which practice area you want to qualify into? Graduate Recruitment partner Emily Holdstock, newly qualified solicitor Tamsin Collingridge and trainee Molly Haynes join podcast host Miri Stickland to discuss whether it is OK to be undecided.
Are there unwritten rules you need to follow in training contract interviews? Partner Katherine Ekers and trainees Ellen Jones and Cameron Turnbull join podcast host Miri Stickland to discuss what to wear and whether to eat the biscuits offered!
Does showing commercial awareness really mean faithfully memorising the contents of the Economist each week? Podcast host Miri Stickland is joined by Partner Katherine Ekers and trainees Phoebe Jackson and Annalisa Gardner to discuss the tricky issue of how to show commercial awareness.
Senior Partner Smita Edwards, Graduate Recruitment Partner Emily Holdstock and Graduate Recruitment officer Emma Cooper join Miri Stickland to discuss why diversity and inclusion is so important to Forsters, the preconceptions that applicants may have about the firm and why they should look past them, our D&I strategy and initiatives the Graduate Recruitment team are taking to promote diversity.
Is only work experience in law firms relevant to a training contract application? Graduate Recruitment partner Emily Holdstock and trainees Ellen Jones, Candice Johnson and Joe May join podcast host Miri Stickland to discuss how work and volunteering experience in other sectors can also be a huge asset.
Is there a ‘right’ answer to the questions you are asked at interview? Partner Katherine Ekers and trainees Tatiana Kinsky and Oliver James join podcast host Miri Stickland to give their insights.
The Chancery Lane Project – Lawyers taking direct action over climate change
29 July 2021
News
Forsters are supporting The Chancery Lane Project – a pro bono collective effort by lawyers to develop new drafting for contracts and laws to help fight climate change.
The Chancery Lane Project is an organisation which is driving direct action in respect of climate change by coming up with standard form green clauses in legal contracts. The rationale being that contracts underpin economic relationships and the inclusion of green clauses will have a more immediate effect than related climate change legislation, which can take a long time to enact.
In commercial transactions the starting point for any negotiation is influenced by custom. If greener clauses become more familiar and we talk about those with our clients, then together we can help create new market norms. Many of our clients have internal climate conscious or carbon reduction policies and environmental risk is increasingly influencing investment decisions, so it makes sense on many levels to tackle this issue.
Real estate – greener drafting?
A lease or development agreement that is completed today may be in place for years to come. Both the embodied carbon and the operational carbon emissions associated with that property can be significantly influenced by the original contracts.
Members of the Forsters Commercial Real Estate team have worked as part of the Chancery Lane Project on various collaborative cross-firm efforts.
This includes:
The drafting of model clauses concerned with encouraging sustainable and circular economy principles in carrying out repairs and alterations under leases. These clauses are designed to encourage landlords and tenants alike to reuse existing materials or to use recycled, reclaimed or sustainable materials in carrying out alterations or repair works. The model clauses will also help landlords and tenants to consider the lifespan of a product, design or construction, reducing the amount of waste going to landfill and reliance on natural resources.
The drafting of model service charge clauses. It is usually difficult for landlords to recoup the cost of making environmental improvements to a building through the service charge (as service charge costs do not usually extend to improvements unless an item requires renewal as it is beyond economic repair) and this prevents landlords from making their buildings more energy efficient. The model clauses are intended to enable landlords to include improvement of the environmental performance of a building in the service charge costs (where such works are not necessarily required) in a move towards net zero emissions.
The provisions also encourage landlords to use sustainable procurement in providing services, promote the use of reused, recycled and reclaimed materials, and enable landlords to install renewable energy solutions and metering to track energy consumption. The clauses will also help landlords to implement a strategy to reduce reliance on natural resources and the amount of waste going to landfill, and encourage co-operation between landlords and tenants to maximise energy efficiency of buildings.
Attending the Chancery Lane Project’s “Real Estate: Built Environment” event series to collaborate on developing clauses that support the built environment’s transition to net zero emissions. The clauses discussed fell under the following principle themes: investment (commercial and residential), development and lending.
Action achieved so far
In the first year of the project a total of 5,000 pro bono hours have been donated (worth about one and a half million pounds in fees) and 115 organisations have been involved across 60 countries.
Our sustainability hub brings together the team’s insights and legal expertise on a broad range of environmental matters that affect our clients’ business and personal affairs. This is a rapidly evolving and wide-ranging area of law and we will continue to share our insights about related legal developments on this hub.
Whilst much of the focus on the decarbonisation of the built environment has been on owners and occupiers working together to reduce the operational carbon footprint of buildings (see our Green Lease Playbook), alongside this, we are increasingly hearing about the importance of addressing embodied carbon – the other key factor in establishing the total carbon footprint of a building.
What is operational carbon?
Operational carbon is a building’s in-use carbon load. It is the combined emissions used by landlords in managing their assets and by tenants in occupying them – the heating, cooling, lighting, ventilating and powering of a building.
What is embodied carbon?
Also known as embedded carbon, embodied carbon is the amount of carbon generated in the process and supply chain involved in producing a built asset i.e. the emissions produced in the construction and development of a building.
Elements contributing to the embodied carbon footprint might include preparatory site works, the extraction, manufacture and delivery of building materials and the carrying out of the construction and infrastructure works themselves as well as any works of repair, replacement and maintenance. One methodology for calculating embodied carbon also includes the emissions resulting from the decommissioning of a building at the end of its lifecycle.
Assessments of how much embodied carbon contributes to a building’s total carbon footprint vary within the range of 10 – 50%. It is important to recognise that, unlike operational carbon footprints, which can be improved over time through the implementation of enhanced energy efficiency measures, embodied carbon footprints are irreversible. As measures to reduce operational carbon in the built environment are becoming increasingly widespread and effective, this means that the proportion of the total carbon footprint attributable to embodied carbon is only likely to increase.
Requirements under The London Plan
The London Plan sets out a requirement for developments to calculate and reduce Whole Life Cycle Carbon emissions. This only applies to planning applications which are referred to the Mayor, however the assessments are encouraged for all major applications. Consultations on both the guidance and template, to be used in assessing the emissions, closed in January 2021.
Planning applications will be expected to use the guidance and assessment template once the final document is prepared, expected in the summer of 2021. It has been indicated that the post-construction reporting of the Whole Life Cycle Carbon Assessments will be secured by planning conditions.
The bigger picture
London is leading the way with assessments of Whole Life Carbon as part of the planning process, which is not currently applicable elsewhere in the UK. It remains to be seen whether these assessments will be incorporated into the changes to the planning system recently announced and will become applicable to other areas of the country. Accordingly, early consideration of embodied carbon at the design and build stage of a development, including whether the repurposing of existing structures is a viable option, together with the implementation of measures such as commitments to using only renewable, recycled and recyclable materials and sustainable procurement methods, will be crucial in the continuing drive towards net zero.
Context Embodied Carbon in Construction Calculator (EC3)
If you are looking at developing new sites and want to make assessments on the project’s overall embodied carbon emissions the EC3 tool may be a useful tool. EC3 was created by nearly 50 construction and property industry partners, and is a free open-source tool that uses building material quantities from construction estimates, BIM models and a database of digital, third-party verified Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). The tool can be used in the design and procurement phases of projects and already has 10,000 users. https://www.buildingtransparency.org/
A PDF copy of the article above is also available to download here.
Victoria Towers is a Partner and Miri Stickland is a Knowledge Development Lawyer in our Commercial Real Estate team. Sophie Smith is an Associate in our Planning team.
Our sustainability hub brings together the team’s insights and legal expertise on a broad range of environmental matters that affect our clients’ business and personal affairs. This is a rapidly evolving and wide-ranging area of law and we will continue to share our insights about related legal developments on this hub.
The roll-out of Electric Vehicle Charging Points (EVCPs) across the UK is only going to continue to gather speed, with the government’s announcement last year of a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, to take effect from 2030. Changes to the building regulations regime are anticipated later this year, imposing requirements on the provision of EVCPs in new buildings going forward, with further regulation expected for 2025 in relation to existing commercial buildings with car parking.
In this briefing we set out an overview of the key issues and questions for property owners to consider in relation to EVCPs.
What is it proposed to install?
Not all chargers work at the same speed. It is important to understand the different capacities of the charging units and their suitability for the anticipated use. Note also that cars will have different connectors, meaning that not all EVCPs can be used by all electric vehicles.
This being the case, landowners may want to consider including obligations in their contractual arrangements with operators to ensure that any EVCPs are compatible with a specified percentage of electric vehicles on the road in the UK from time to time.
How is the arrangement going to be structured?
Is the agreement between landowner and EVCP operator a purely commercial arrangement or is it, in fact, a lease? If the operator has exclusive possession of the site, care will need to be taken to ensure that rights of security of tenure under the 1954 Act are not inadvertently being given. The risk here, of course, lies with the landowner and a careful analysis will be required.
Landlords may also be approached by tenants to grant rights either to use existing EVCPs or to install new EVCPs. Thought should be given to whether any such rights are being granted on an exclusive or non-exclusive basis – which will be of particular importance on a multi-let property where the premises demised to tenants include external areas and may allow for the installation of EVCPs. Where a landlord is to agree to give an operator exclusivity over a particular site, consideration will also need to be given to the impact of the Competition Act.
Landlords will also want to ensure that, if tenants are engaging directly with operators, arrangements can be unwound and control handed back to the landlord at the end of the term.
Financials
Covenant strength
Operator companies may be of limited covenant strength, so consider whether a parent company guarantee is required. Is operator experience more important than financial strength?
CapEx
CapEx on EVCPs can be significant. With fast-evolving technology, equipment will require upgrading regularly to avoid obsolescence. Who is going to bear both the initial outlay and ongoing system maintenance and upgrade costs? Who will own the equipment at the end of the agreement? Operators may seek longer term arrangements in order to recoup their initial CapEx, but this means less flexibility for landowners, who will not want to be tied into systems which may become obsolete.
There are specific capital allowances available for business incurred CapEx on EVCPs so specialist input is advisable.
Rent
Rental models will often be turnover/revenue linked, usually with a base rent payable. Consider whether such base rent should be subject to review – for example, subject to annual RPI linked increases and/or OMV reviews. There will currently be few comparables in the market for OMV rent review purposes.
Charging Costs/Income
Who are going to be the end-users of the EVCPs? Are they intended for public use or is it to be restricted to occupational tenants? If the latter, how will the charging and maintenance costs be recovered? Consider whether the operator should be required to price competitively relative to other operators in the EVCP market.
Outgoings and Service Charge
All electricity charges/other outgoings relating to the operation of the EVCPs will need to wash through to the operator and/or the end user. Consider on what basis (if any) the operator should be contributing to any existing service charge regime. If the installation means an increased traffic flow to the site, should the operator bear the associated repair and maintenance costs?
What type of site is it?
Existing tenanted scheme
While the installation of EVCPs will provide a long term benefit, it will be advisable to carry out a review exercise of existing leases to establish whether the installation may interfere with rights that have already been granted, such as rights to use/demise of specific parking spaces and capacity issues in respect of electricity supply. There may also be potential disruption if extensive construction works are required and an impact on the service charge regime, for example where the EVCPs are not run off a separate electricity supply.
New development
Thought should be given to future-proofing the offering, so that there is flexibility to allow for changes in technology/ regulatory requirements. For example, will the infrastructure being installed now be sufficient to accommodate further connections and/or an upgrade in software in the future?
What additional infrastructure/works are needed?
Consider who is going to carry out any works and the extent of the rights being granted for the installation and then operation of the EVCPs. Are any third party consents required? Issues may include dedicated parking spaces/minimum parking space requirements, access rights, whether a new electricity substation will be needed to provide the necessary capacity, the need for a storage compound during construction and any required environmental remediation works.
From a construction point of view, it will be important to establish who is responsible for design and installation. Consider also the interface with repair and maintenance obligations and the liability for potential losses which may arise as a consequence of defective design and/or workmanship.
Is planning permission required?
The installation of charging points is ‘development’ for the purposes of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which needs planning permission to be lawful. EVCPs can be authorised under planning control by permitted development rights, but this is subject to numerous conditions and restrictions.
Where PD rights do not apply, an application for planning permission will be needed.
Operation of the site
Agreed Service Levels
Are there agreed KPIs/service levels? For example, operator response times in the event of a fault developing and scheduled maintenance programmes.
Consequences of Non-Operation
If the electricity supply is interrupted due to an act or default of the landowner, is rent to be suspended until the supply is reinstated? Where there are turnover rent provisions, should there be a notional amount allocated in the accounting process for any period during which the EVCPs are non-operational due to the act or default of the operator? If the EVCPs are unavailable for an extended period, consider the inclusion of termination rights for the landowner.
Data Sharing
Landowners may want to have access to the data system for the EVCPs – consider who owns the data system for the chargers and what ability there is to share that data with third parties.
System Compatibility
Whilst most operators are working towards using a common system so that anyone can charge at their sites, as referred to above, at present the various systems (plugs and data) are not universally compatible. Landowners will be keen to ensure that the system installed is (and remains) appropriate for the required usage.
Context
Public EVCP
The UK has around 35,000 public EV charge points.*
Charge Point Operators are installing around 7,000 new charge points each year.*
By 2030, the UK is likely to need around 400,000 public charge points, including around 6,000 high powered charge points.*
Private EVCP
Detailed data on current private EVCPs in the UK is not available but, to contextualise the commercial private demand for companies with fleets of vehicles, in a survey of 200 (million+ turnover) UK businesses**, the average planned spend on EV adoption was cited as 4.5% of annual turnover between 2020-2022 which equates to £12 billion in investment. Over a quarter, (27%) of respondents, expected at least a fifth of the vehicles within their fleet to be electric by 2022.
*Source: 2021 Charging Up Policies to deliver a comprehensive network of public EV chargepoints, Policy Exchange. Read the full report here. **Source: Centrica Business Solutions UK firm EV Investment Intentions 2020 survey – the full upshots of that research can be found here.
A PDF copy of the article above is also available to download here.
Victoria Towers is a Partner, Miri Stickland is a Knowledge Development Lawyer, Peter Selwyn is Counsel and Andrew McEwan is a Senior Associate. All authors sit in our Commercial Real Estate team.
Our sustainability hub brings together the team’s insights and legal expertise on a broad range of environmental matters that affect our clients’ business and personal affairs. This is a rapidly evolving and wide-ranging area of law and we will continue to share our insights about related legal developments on this hub.
Partner and training principal, Helen Marsh, and second year trainee Anastasia Pejacsevich join Miri Stickland to talk about life as a trainee at Forsters, including the type of support and training our trainees can expect to receive throughout their training contracts, adapting to life as a trainee and the process on qualification.
Helen discusses the importance of trainees here at Forsters: “We value our trainees highly here at Forsters, and as part of our business, so we try to give them the best training and we spend a lot of time and resource on them.”
“The formal induction programme at the start of the training contract is quite intensive, covering all the internal processes of the firm. Both during the initial induction and throughout the training contract we focus on providing technical legal training including research, writing and drafting skills alongside pastoral training on building resilience, dealing with stress and how to deal with difficult conversations.”
Anastasia provides her perspective as a current trainee: “As a trainee every day is different. You can’t always plan your day, which makes you learn to be a lot more flexible and not to panic if something unexpected crops up. I’ve really developed how to manage my time and adapt to different situations.”
“One of the things I really like about being in an open-plan environment is that you hear more senior people asking each other questions to get the benefit of each other’s expertise, which makes it feel more normal when I have to ask questions about a piece of work I’ve been given on something I haven’t dealt with before.”
You can learn more about training at Forsters by viewing our Graduate Recruitment pages.
A gloriously crisp January morning saw me donning my very attractive cycling gear and speeding down to Kings Cross to attend a breakfast seminar to unpick the key themes behind the recently published London Knowledge Clusters Research Report. Commissioned by the London Property Alliance and authored by one of the speakers at the seminar, Jack Sallabank of Future Places Studio, the report explores the growing role of life sciences and associated ‘knowledge’ industries in the London economy, focusing on the key opportunities and challenges for London’s real estate industry in these areas.
Fittingly, the seminar was hosted in the Francis Crick Institute, the largest biomedical institute under one roof in Europe, which sits at the heart of the Kings Cross/Euston knowledge hub. As noted in the opening remarks from Nick Carter, the Director of Facilities and Infrastructure, the Crick, which was opened towards the end of 2016, is a building designed with collaboration and innovation in mind. These are key themes which were returned to throughout the session. Here are my five key take-aways from the session:
What is a knowledge cluster? As Jack Sallabank explained, a knowledge cluster is a geographic location which attracts organisations from the knowledge economy, namely the science, healthcare, technology, education and creative services sectors. The clusters usually form around a key anchor, such as a university, research centre or hospital, which then attract other organisations from the knowledge economy. As the cluster develops, it provides opportunities for collaboration between different talent networks and access to other organisations’ resources, leading to innovation.
Where are they? Four key cluster areas have been identified in London: Kings Cross/Euston, Whitechapel, White City and Sutton. Whilst the concept can appear to be part of the zeitgeist of today, the original knowledge cluster was actually established in Bloomsbury in the 1800s, focused around the British Museum and the London University (the pre-cursor to UCL). King’s Cross/Euston is the most established of the four, with multiple large players from the knowledge sector based there (the Crick, the Wellcome Trust, the British Library, UCL, Google and soon Facebook, to name a few). White City is an emerging cluster with Imperial College London at its heart. Collaborative plans for a life sciences campus in Whitechapel are being developed by key stakeholders, including QMUL and St Barts NHS Trust. Sutton has been identified by the Institute of Cancer Research and the Royal Marsden as a hub for the future. Whilst the focus of the day was very much on the London knowledge clusters, it was also acknowledged that there is a longstanding and thriving life sciences knowledge cluster in Cambridge.
Sense of community Engagement is needed between all the stakeholders in a knowledge cluster, from the anchor institutions, which are increasingly taking a more outward-facing approach, to the relevant local authority, which needs to value the institutions and businesses as part of their community. Public engagement is critical, with citizens panels, innovation hubs and other community engagement projects needed to ensure buy-in from local residents.
Flexibility is key Knowledge clusters need to be developed with future growth in mind. The panel discussed the need for space to be adaptable to allow the bringing together of people from different specialities in order to facilitate collaboration, rather than developing space along the traditional departmental structure lines. However, as the panel discussed, this must be balanced against the need for quiet space to avoid endless over-stimulation! The potential for the evolution of knowledge sector start-ups into larger corporates also needs to be considered in order to avoid corporate expansion meaning the loss of both the business and the intellects behind it to a different knowledge hub.
The need for speed must be balanced with patience Whilst it was acknowledged that it is a challenge to complete these sort of projects at speed, taking time to reflect will be also rewarded. Design and build teams need to engage with the end users of the developed buildings – balancing what they “want” against what they “need” in order to create space to thrive. Following the seminar I was lucky enough to be given a personalised tour (“it’s not what you know… it’s having your elder sister work there” being the appropriate proverb for that perk) of the Crick: showcasing knowledge, collaboration and innovation in action.
