Mills & Reeve LLP

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

• ‘Carina Davis (née Cobbold) is our lead contact and always provides exceptional advice - her responses are always thoroughly considered, relevant and commercial. Her team are also great to work with.’

• 'Caroline Dean is the most responsive partner I have ever dealt with - in times when I have needed something, she is there like an extension of my own team which has been very invaluable and exactly what I needed.’

• ‘Caroline Davis considers leases from a commercial perspective too, she always finds a way to solve a negotiating problem as efficiently as possible.’

• ‘David Siddall is very helpful.’

• 'Lisa-Marie Kennedy is incredibly efficient, diligent and is excellent at communicating so that I always know where we are in the transaction (which then helps me to manage it internally). She is extremely knowledgeable in her areas of legal expertise, and is also very commercial at the same time. Lisa is really great at getting transactions completed, making sure to prompt relevant parties where needed in a friendly and effective way. Effective collaboration is a very strong skill she possesses, amongst others.'
• 'Senior associate Ross Buckingham is extremely responsive and, again, very diligent, intelligent (clearly knows a great deal about his area of work) and is very proactive in getting things done. His attention to detail is excellent and he dedicates time and thoughtfulness into the work he does which is extremely reassuring. Ross also is very personable and approachable, and a pleasure to work with.'
• ‘I work mainly with Judy Day who is efficient and professional. I value the way Judy cares very much about our charity. Her values are totally aligned which makes working alongside her an absolute pleasure.’
• 'Senior associate Callum Ross has a vast amount of knowledge and experience with utilities and telecoms matters, and has provided effective support and advice in these areas when we needed them the most.'

• ‘What makes Mills & Reeve unique is the vast amount (and depth) of sector expertise. I have used them for specialist telecoms advice, development and tax advice and also specialist banking work (amongst other things) and they delivered an excellent quality service every time and clearly have had a lot of experience working with different clients on a range of transactions. The other firms I usually deal with do not have this level of depth and breadth of expertise/specialism – there are always those with specialisms although it is clear to see that the ones which the lawyers at Mills & Reeve possess far exceed the norm.'

• 'Mills & Reeve are also particularly great at collaboration which other firms (even full service ones) do not do as well. It is so refreshing to be able to send work their way and know that they will just ensure relevant different specialists input into the transaction without me needing to do anything further (e.g. on a development site purchase they will communicate internally with the tax team, environmental lawyer etc). This is wholly reassuring as a client and you do not need to spend any time in ensuring this is done - they take care of all of that for you. Other full-service law firms don't always "speak" to each other in the same way and I have found can be disjointed. Mills & Reeve does this seamlessly and act as one firm. You really do feel like you are getting value for money.’

• ‘The entire team are all so friendly, approachable and knowledgeable.'

• ‘The main area for us is that Mills and Reeve appear to attempt to understand the wider issues when dealing with an instruction. We do not simply require a black and white answer or advice. We ask for and receive a more rounded view.’

• ‘Carina Davies is generally outstanding and has always given us the best advice.’

• ‘The practice excels at prompt advice and information delivered in such a way that non-legal professionals are able to weigh up available options and make the best decisions for their business.’

• ‘We have worked with M&R for a number of years and they have invested heavily in not only supporting our needs but also ensuring their team fully understand our business/projects. We chose them originally as they have excellent planning, property and construction teams, are predominantly based outside of London and have excellent experience working with key stakeholders such as local authorities and housebuilders. M&R provide City of London law firm expertise from a regional cost base. They are exceptionally hardworking, personable and invest considerable time in understanding our business and helping us structure transactions/documents to meet our specific business needs. You never feel like you are getting something off the shelf. They also ensure that they internalise knowledge transfer between teams working for U&C so that projects progress seamlessly from acquisition to planning, through construction and on into plot sales. This reduces both cost and risk for us and enables efficient interaction via our client partner.'

• 'M&R manage to retain lawyers and progress their careers internally. This means we also build strong and lasting relationships and they retain corporate knowledge. We regularly see other law firms acting for a range of clients including finance, housebuilders, local authorities etc. By comparison, our M&R team are extremely knowledgeable and do not need to send multiple lawyers to a development meeting. We find that other law firms tend to over specialise and therefore send multiple lawyers to meetings increasing the costs for their clients. We have on occasion had the client on the other side of a transaction calling up our lawyers to ask them to explain a point and we often find that such clients go on to instruct M&R in the future.’

• ‘Our client partner is Carina Davis (previously Carina Cobbold). Carina is an eminently talented lawyer and an equally skilled client partner. Our entire team have complete faith in her ability to advise on real estate specific matters but also to intervene and resolve matters across other disciplines when and where required. She is formidable in meetings, is able to absorb information extremely quickly, has a mathematical ability that exceeds any other lawyer not to mention quite a few accountants and is extremely commercial and practical. Put simply, having Carina on your side makes life a lot easier and you feel confident of a successful outcome.’

• 'The Team give advice and deal with matters in a very straight-forward and uncomplicated way. They give good commercial advice without getting caught up in technical details which really works for our business.'

• 'David Siddall - always on hand to answer calls and is ready to give advice where needed. We don't receive streams of legal jargon, just clear principles which works for us magnificently.'

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