About

Team size: 20

Major legal advisers: Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, Hogan Lovells, CMS, Burges Salmon, Womble Bond Dickinson, Town Legal

What are the most important transactions and litigations that you have been involved in during the last year?

Delivering the Round four Auction is undoubtedly the biggest highlight. The six new offshore wind projects in the waters around England and Wales is a massive vote of confidence for the UK’s green economy and 2050 Net Zero commitments. It is a true cross-specialist and innovative legal project.

Beyond that, we have delivered new partnership models with Westminster to enhance the public realm on Regent Street and also won praise in the national press for our approach to risk sharing under new leasing models with our customers – in part instigated by the impact of Covid on customer trading conditions.

What were the main steps you took to protect the business once it became clear we were in the midst of an unprecedented challenge?

In a three phase strategy, we moved from responding to the crisis, through rebuilding our approach into restoring our business as one that seeks to lead across its diverse portfolio. While we initially focused on our resilience to weather the storm, we also worked in partnership with our customers to ensure that the value chain remained as strong as it could. Much effort from the legal team also went into managing our diverse stakeholder relationships.

How have you maintained your team’s cohesion when you have been unable to see them face-to-face as regularly as usual?

We have taken every step available to us – from regular Zoom meetings, to MindFitness training, quotes of the day, social WhatsApp channels and interaction on Yammer. We altered our performance systems to ensure that people put themselves and their family first, with work prioritised around that through our dynamic working policies. During this time we have doubled down on our support for each other and our wider business. In addition, having a clear purpose for our team drives our cohesion and our strategy – even during times of difficulty and disruption.

In what ways do you see the in-house legal role evolving over the next few years?

We are all going to become more Bionic – a better balance of applying process and technology to repeatable solutions, freeing up time to collaborate on complex issues.