The real estate sector has not traditionally been home to large teams of in-house lawyers. As such, the eight-strong UKbased legal team at Australian construction, property and infrastructure group Lendlease is relatively large for the market. Even so, says GC Mark Packer, the amount of work the team gets through is genuinely impressive. ‘Competitors may work on one or two projects, but we are doing everything from investment to development to construction at the same time. There isn’t another team in this sector that is handling so much complex work on a regular basis.’ In the past year, that work has included supporting the delivery of Google’s new King’s Cross headquarters, negotiating commercial agreements for the International Quarter in Stratford, LendLease’s £2.4bn joint venture development with London Continental Railways, securing a role as contractor on Scape Group’s £7bn National Construction framework, and forming a £1.5bn build-to-let partnership with CPP Investment Board to develop private rental and affordable homes at Lendlease’s Elephant Park development in Elephant & Castle. Packer and his team have also been increasingly busy in Italy, where a spate of new ventures have seen Lendlease become the country’s largest property developer. These projects include acting as contractor to the €2bn Milano Santa Giulia development, a green and residential district under construction in the southeast periphery of Milan, and as preferred bidder to redesign Milan’s 100-hectare 2015 world expo site. Lendlease has also entered into a joint venture agreement to work on Rome’s new Pescaccio shopping centre – one of a number of urban regeneration schemes Packer’s team is now working on. In these matters Packer has been supported chiefly by Amy Cashman, who joined the UK team from Lendlease’s Australian office in 2016 and is tipped as a rising star in the sector. He has also been able to draw on the experience of Joanna Brown, one of the most experienced members of the team and a well-known figure in the real estate community. Brown moved from her native Australia to join the London office shortly after it was established and has been a key figure in some of Lendlease’s most high-profile matters in the City, including its Greenwich Peninsula development, now owned by Hong Kong-based developer Knight Dragon, and the initial bid for work on the redevelopment of Battersea Power Station. She is now leading on the company’s Elephant & Castle scheme. The core of the team, however, is formed of lawyers with similar levels of experience: Ruby Jhita, previously a Lendlease secondee, joined from Nabarro in 2016. Senior construction lawyer Peter Duncan joined from Heathrow in 2014 shortly after legal counsel for Europe Tom Grundy had joined from Eversheds. ‘Having people at the same level of experience and seniority helps to make a team entrepreneurial,’ says Packer. ‘They know they are competing for face time with senior business leaders, which produces a friendly rivalry across the team. I can’t think of a better way to encourage career development.’