Lenz & Staehelin advises private and institutional investors, developers, public authorities, contractors and financial institutions on a wide range of project development matters. The team is involved in both advisory and contentious construction-related work including contract and project structuring, public procurement strategies, and operation and maintenance agreements. The Geneva office is headed by Cécile Berger Meyer, who has extensive experience advising clients on the purchase, sale, and structuring of real estate as well as administrative law matters. Beat Kühni, who handles all real estate related issues such as transactional work, financing, and complex international industrial revamping projects, co-heads the Zurich team.

Legal 500 Editorial commentary

Testimonials

Collated independently by Legal 500 research team.

  • ‘L&S's team (RE and construction practice group) is very responsive, committed and very well meets client's needs, be it larger transactions or smaller requests.’

  • ‘Beat Kuehni: very broad knowledge beyond real estate & construction. Cécile Berger Meyer: very pragmatic approach and concise advice.’

  • ‘Our organisation has been working for a very long period of time with Lenz&Staehelin and they have been instrumental in the negotiation of the contractual terms of a very important project for our Group. Their knowledge and insight on the real estate market in Switzerland has been extremely valuable as well as their high level of legal expertise. Finally, the firm has been able to allocate resources extremely quickly to our project which was key for its success.’

  • ‘Cecile Berger is an outstanding business partner able to understand the commercial issues, to share her deep knowledge of the markets and to explain clearly the legal stakes to the business. Her commitment to the project and her sound advice have been key to our project.’

  • ‘Ability to manage the work according to the process and deadlines. Taylor made service and able to perform under pressure.’

  • ‘The combination of the quality of work, the speed and the understanding of the client's needs are unique.’

  • ‘The quality of the people I've dealt with over the years: There is a very strong and stable partner basis, and qualitative associates that one can feel, have been carefully selected. The capacity of adaptation is impressive, mostly since we (as construction management professionals) tend to consult the layers with very diverse and specific questions. Contract negotiation has also been an important part of our common activities, during which the partners didn't hesitate to defend their clients' interests while retaining an impressive level of professionalism.’

  • ‘Me Berger has a deep level of understanding of people and subjects. Her ability to identify problems and suggest approaches to handle them is outstanding. She is very available and always finds the time answer in person when needed. Behind her is an impressive team of associates which she built during the last years starting from scratch. I enjoyed the responsiveness of the team as well as the dedication to the tasks they were assigned. All the deadlines have systematically been met with a high quality of the deliverables.’

Key clients

  • BMS
  • FIVE Resorts Group
  • Swiss Prime Site Solutions
  • Vail Resorts
  • Union Investment
  • AXA

Lawyers

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Practice head

The lawyer(s) leading their teams.

Cécile Berger Meyer, Beat Kühni

Other key lawyers

Andreas Rötheliö