Fifty thousand square feet of real estate lawyers on a single floor. That is what the new CMS will boast at its modern, spacious and oh-so-stylish London office in Cannon Place.
From the start of May they will combine, in one open-plan, agile workspace, the skills and expertise of three of the city’s leading legal lights: CMS, Nabarro and Olswang. And the combined firm’s real estate leadership team – Ciaran Carvalho, Mark Heighton, John Cumpson, Danielle Drummond-Brassington and Martin Evans – cannot wait.
An air of excitement
Since the deal was announced last October, they have been working hard on the process of uniting what will be a huge real estate team – in the UK and Europe, that’s more than 200 partners and more than 650 lawyers. The merger brings together former rivals that the team believe greatly complement each other – and the word they keep coming back to is “excited”.
Carvalho feels that the diversity of the client base will be “phenomenal”, and that the firm’s strength in depth will make it “internationally compelling”.
He cites the addition of Olswang’s market leading technology practice as one that will benefit the firm’s real estate offering. Carvalho is thrilled with the positive feedback from across the board – real estate investment trusts to international investors, sovereign wealth funds and institutions. He says: “They really do understand why we felt this was logical, rational and exciting. I really believe we will be the leading firm for UK and European real estate. Our clients are not just doing work in the UK. Increasingly, they are going across borders – and we want to be there to help and support them. I think it will bring a lot of benefits to our clients and I’m really excited about it.”
Drummond-Brassington, who will lead the disputes team, is looking forward to bringing together three practices, each of which has different specialisms, into one group, while Evans oversees the amalgamation of planning teams that are already “well respected and highly ranked in the market”, as well as being very complementary in terms of sectors and clients. He believes the merger gives the firm the platform to be even more involved in helping inward investors into regeneration in the UK and beyond.
Heighton sees the real estate offering as having “strength in depth in every jurisdiction” and being key to the firm as a whole, supporting – and being supported by – other sector groups, such as energy, technology, construction, tax and finance, to deliver added value to clients.
As a result, he believes the combined CMS will be greater than the sum of its parts: “Each of the three firms brings something slightly different to the party – it’s two plus two plus two equals seven, as far as we are concerned.”
Bringing it all together
If the way the leadership team interacts – building on their colleagues’ ideas and even, at times, finishing each other’s sentences – is anything to go by, the merger is an alliance of three firms with a similar ethos and a shared vision. “Culturally, we would not have been able to do this unless we all got along,” says Carvalho. “We feel that that is crucial. We spent a long time getting to know each other and there is a very good feeling around all three firms.”
There has been a lot of hard work involved in the months since the announcement, but Cumpson says: “We’re still smiling, that’s good. We’ve invested a huge amount of time building the relationship between the three practices and that’s gone very well.” They have focused on integration at all levels across the business, including secondments between firms and shared training.
The three firms have already undertaken a number of joint pitches to clients, and referred work between them – Carvalho cites one Far East client of Nabarro that was looking raise a fund to invest in the UK that needed capability in Sharia financing provided by CMS.
Cumpson adds: “There’s been the focus on getting into the building, getting the teams together and making sure we continue the quality of service we have been delivering – and then hopefully take a step up when we are all together. But then there is the broader issue, the development of the strategy for the real estate practice, and there’s still a huge amount of work to do – but the opportunities are legion.”
A thoroughly modern law firm
To make the most of those opportunities, CMS is committed to innovation. All three firms had already embraced agile working, and the Cannon Place offices – which CMS moved into in 2015 – offer the technology and connectivity for that way of working to thrive.
Drummond-Brassington, who has been in situ for 20 months, describes the environment as “fantastic” and “very fun”. It is one that has changed the way she and her colleagues work: “We all walk around with our Surface Pros because we can work anywhere. I know when I’ve been talking to Nabarro and Olswang people they are very excited about getting the technology.”
Naturally, each firm has been looking at document automation and artificial intelligence, and the growing influence it will have in the years to come, and the combined CMS intends to use technology as much as possible to find the “simple solutions” to problems that frustrate clients, as Cumpson puts it. Heighton welcomes the amount of time and resources that will be available to focus on technology: “We will be able to do much more than each of the three firms would have been able to do individually. One of the advantages of the critical mass we have is that we will be able to invest a lot more and achieve a lot more.”
And for Carvalho, there is more to innovating than just relying on machines. He is proud that, across the group, CMS has a number of people on industry committees, including his own work with the Investment Property Forum on its standard non-disclosure and exclusivity agreements. “We want to be at the forefront of that sort of thinking,” he says. “Not just modernising legal practice but supporting the industry and increasing the liquidity of property as an asset class. All those sorts of initiatives are very important. If you want to be the leading firm, which we absolutely want to be in the UK and Europe, we have to take on those sorts of roles and responsibilities.”
The hard work starts now
The team have been pulling out all the stops to hit the 1 May merger date, and they are determined to keep their momentum going. They have worked out between them that the combined firm acts for 15 out of 17 of the top international investors into European commercial real estate in one way or another – and the target is to work for all those key clients across the whole of the firm. They have grand ambitions, but their relish for the task ahead is palpable.
“There’s a huge sense of excitement,” says Drummond-Brassington. “People are looking at things as a fresh start. They’re coming across, they’ve got a clean desk, there is a sense of opportunity there.”
“Anything worth achieving is going to be challenging,” adds Carvalho. “If it was that easy, everybody would be doing it. No one has ever done a three-way law firm merger. That is a demanding thing to pull off and I think across the business we are all very excited. We know there’s going to be a lot of work to be done but we are all committed to doing that for the benefit of our clients and our people.”
As the close-knit team’s thoughts begin to overlap, Cumpson acknowledges it is “quite daunting”, but he is determined to create an environment for everyone to thrive – or, as Heighton quickly adds: “To be the best they can be.”
“We are building something unique,” Heighton continues. “It’s our collective responsibility to deliver on it.” That is a burden they will meet with enthusiasm – and, yes, excitement.
Leadership team
Ciaran Carvalho, head of real estate
Former firm: Nabarro
Key clients: Angelo Gordon & Co, Employees Provident Fund of Malaysia, Lendlease and London and Continental Railways, Union Investment and Urban & Civic
Danielle Drummond-Brassington, head of real estate disputes
Former firm: CMS
Key clients: Wellcome Trust, Aberdeen Property Fund, GLH Hotels
John Cumpson, joint real estate practice group leader
Former firm: Nabarro
Key clients: Land Securities, DTZ Investors, Mitsubishi Estate, Dolphin Square Charitable Foundation
Mark Heighton, joint real estate practice group leader
Former firm: CMS
Key clients: Imperial College, Taylor Wimpey, Pegasus Life, Anthology, Long Harbour
Martin Evans, head of planning
Former firm: Nabarro
Key clients: Hammerson, Standard Life, SEGRO, Qatari Diar, Costco
• LISTEN: The real estate leadership team share their vision for the merged firm
