Life at Brodies: being a real estate lawyer

In our series 'Life at Brodies', we're getting to know Brodies colleagues as they share their personal experiences and perspectives about working at a leading UK law firm.

In this episode, legal director Rory Forbes and solicitor Nina Munro discuss their career paths into the real estate team at Brodies, address some misconceptions around what being a real estate lawyer actually involves, and explain how the energy transition is creating new and exciting work for the real estate market. 

Wherever you are in your career find out more about making that next step in your journey at Brodies by visiting Brodies.com/careers.

Transcript

00:00:05 David Lee, Host

Hello and welcome to Podcasts by Brodies. My name is David Lee and in this series of Life at Brodies, we get to know Brodies colleagues as they share their personal experiences and perspectives about working at a leading UK law firm.

Today, I'm delighted to welcome real estate lawyers - Nina Munro and Rory Forbes - to talk about working in real estate law and to share their thoughts on an area of the law that is much broader in range and type of work than many young people thinking about entering the law may realise, and perhaps a little bit different to some of the stereotypes. 

So, welcome Rory and Nina. Nina, if I can come to you first. You qualified in 2024 as a solicitor after doing your traineeship with Brodies. Tell me a little bit about your own path into law and what your traineeship experience was like.

00:00:59 Nina Munro, Solicitor

At school, I really liked subjects like English, modern studies and business. They were probably the three top subjects for me and I was debating studying one of those at uni or maybe a mix. 

I spoke to one of my guidance teachers and had a look at some open days and ended up realising that actually law was probably that perfect mix of what I'd been looking for. 

I didn't go into it thinking I was definitely going to be a lawyer, and I always actually thought I was going to be a teacher when I was at school. But again, I thought, well, worst case is if I don't like law, I can go back and do a teacher training course at the end. 

And then in terms of how I ended up at Brodies, I fell into it. At uni, I really liked property law when we studied it. I thought it was really interesting and actually what we did was probably a lot more theoretical than the practical job, and just as well because when I then did honours, I realised that I preferred the practical side to the theoretical side. 

I did a summer placement in 2020, which unfortunately was online due to Covid, but Brodies still made it a really good experience.

And I was in the real estate team for that, based off the second-year course I'd done in property. That really gave me exposure to what it actually is like in real life when you're working in a commercial team. It's not that residential view that you think it might be, and that helped me decide that for my first seat as a trainee that was what I wanted to do. 

Then as time progressed and I did other seats within Brodies I just always came back to wanting to do real estate and that's why I then chose to qualify into that team.

00:02:43 David Lee, Host

Thanks, Nina. We'll talk a little more about your job and how you're enjoying it later on. 

But coming to you, Rory, as Nina touched on their real estate law is an area where maybe students have certain preconceptions of what it involves.

 What were your original views back in the day? I’m making you sound really old. I don't mean to do that! 

What were your original views of real estate law and how did that differ from the reality of actually doing the job?

00:03:11 Rory Forbes, Legal Director

Yeah. Over 12 years ago now, since I left uni. So, feeling old! But slightly opposite from Nina, to be honest. 

In university I did, a property elective in our first or second year. That was all theory-based, and I wasn't too big a fan of that.

I didn't do it for honours and then only did property again on the diploma which is the final year and that was essentially a transaction for the eight weeks buying and selling a house. That's what that was. 

So, I came into law and into my traineeship with the conception that property really was just buying and selling houses and that's what it was limited to. 

I trained at a small firm as well, a general practice firm where the property seat that I did was buying and selling houses. So again, that was my experience of property law from university through my traineeship. There wasn't anything more to it. 

I'd always had in my mind that I wanted to maybe be a court lawyer, and I did a bit of court law, but actually discovered I wasn't a fan of court law once I did it! So, basically once I qualified, I started applying for various jobs. 

I quite liked the transactional nature of property and I'd spoken to a few of my friends who said, commercial property is a lot different to residential property. There’re tonnes more out there.

I joined Brodies, got a job in in the Aberdeen office and then I have been here ever since.

00:04:47 David Lee, Host

And so, you say, buying and selling houses is maybe a lot of people's idea of what of what real estate is, but it is just a small element of what a real estate lawyer does. 

So just tell me a little bit more about - since you moved to Brodies - the kind of work that you've done as a real estate lawyer and what elements of that job you really enjoy.

00:05:08 Rory Forbes, Legal Director

I've been involved in various different sectors, work streams so and it can just differ day-to-day. For example, a couple of years ago I was involved in buying a massive shopping centre in Dundee.

On a day-to-day basis I could be doing leases within an office building, whether acting for a landlord or a tenant. I could be doing leases in the shopping centres and I could be buying or selling an office building - I'm currently in the midst of selling an office building and buying an office building.

At one point in my career I bought bare land for a site in Haddington. And that then morphed into a retail park, so we were involved from start to finish of buying just the land, doing all the leases for all the tenants who were going to go there. So, you've seen it come out the ground and then all the way through to completion. 

There are just various things you can be doing on a day-to-day basis. The main thing I enjoy about it is and what I was touching on there with the retail part thing, is that it is visible, and you can see what you've done. 

I've walked along Princess St in Edinburgh and can point out to my wife, "oh, I did that, I bought that building, I did the lease on that building…". It's tangible and you can see it and that's what I enjoy about it.

00:06:27 David Lee, Host

Ok. Thanks very much, Rory. 

Coming back to you, Nina, you said you did various seats during your traineeship, but you kept, being drawn back to property real estate. 

What was it about your direct experience of working in real estate that made you think that was where you wanted to end up?

Any similar areas to Rory about the variety, the tangible nature of the job and so on?

00:06:53 Nina Munro, Solicitor

I'd echo exactly what Rory said, and what he enjoys about it. 

I think it is that right variety of work and the fact that no day is what you expect it to be. 

You can come in on a Monday morning with a plan for the day and it could be ripped up by 9:15 because something more urgent comes in, or you get asked to help on a deal that's supporting lawyers down south. 

Those can often be quite urgent and referral work is really important to us so you can end up completely changing your day within the first 15 minutes - and I quite like that. I do like a challenge, and I quite like not knowing what's coming next. 

On top of that, I think it was also the people. Throughout my summer placement and throughout my seat as a trainee and then coming up to first year as a solicitor on the team, I've just felt so well supported and really inspired by the people I work with.  

I work with a range of levels, and I've learned so much from every single person, including from our business services teams and from our trainees.

And I think that we're really fortunate in real estate and across Brodies as a whole to have such great people. That really makes it worth turning up to work and going into the office and getting involved.

That was a huge draw for me when I joined real estate.

00:08:14 David Lee, Host

And you touched there a little on getting instructions from UK clients. 

So, you’re not just working in Scotland? You're getting instructions from a whole range of different places?

00:08:25 Nina Munro, Solicitor

Yeah, all over the world, basically. I think being a Scottish headquartered firm, I probably went in with a bit of a misconception myself about Brodies maybe being purely Scottish work. 

We're now expanding into UK-based work, we've got a whole host of English qualified and UK qualified lawyers now across every practice area. 

And we also get a lot of instructions from London law firms and international clients, including US firms and in the Middle East as well, US private equity firms, European real estate investment firms. 

Then on top of that we get a lot of the really good Scottish work as well, being such a big name in that sector.

00:09:11 David Lee, Host

The phrase 'from Haddington to Hanoi' is in my mind. I don't know whether you're doing any work in Vietnam or not, but it sounds good! 

Coming back to you Rory. You said you came to Brodies at solicitor level and you're now a legal director, following a number of promotions. 

Just tell us a little bit about that progression and the support you've got at every level, and maybe a little bit about how your work has changed over the years.

00:09:39 Rory Forbes, Legal Director

Yeah, I joined as an NQ, so basically, right at the end of my traineeship.

And Brodies is great, as Nina says. You're working with a lot of great people.

In the early years when I was still learning the property job, as it were, getting the support from colleagues, team members. Brodies has got great training programmes as well for junior lawyers, practice area-wide and also firmwide that you get involved in. 

On the non-law side, the business development side of it, you are just encouraged from a solicitor and even trainee level to get out and do business development because that's the tools you need as you get to later in your career. 

So, we've got a great programme called Brodies Academy for junior lawyers, which is a programme where you meet lots of junior surveyors, etc. You can build contacts that way. So, when I did that, I've built a lot of contacts at the junior level, and now they've seen me through as I've gone further on in my career.

So yeah, at just every step, you're always getting continuing training, and they support you in any business development activities that you want to do as well, as you get further in your career. 

And how my role has changed? I'm now more in a supervisory role, to the junior lawyers. So, I now deliver quite a lot of the training to them that I was getting when I first started. Also helping out team members on a day-to-day basis, and then also going out doing BD when I can. 

I was actually down in London yesterday. So, when we're talking about no day being the same,   I had a flight to London on Monday night, and Monday all day yesterday in London, and then back up doing BD.

00:11:19 David Lee, Host

And a podcast on Wednesday. Even better!

00:11:22 Rory Forbes, Legal Director

And a podcast on Wednesday. Yup, there you go!

00:11:25 David Lee, Host

The peak in the middle of the week!

And what are your ambitions now Rory? What would you like to go on and do? 

And also, the job you're in now, is it helpful to have been in that position as a newly qualified solicitor, seeing people like Nina coming through and realising maybe how you can help them? 

Early in your career you're coming across new challenges all the time. So, is that helpful to you to look back, in terms of how you assist them?

00:11:53 Rory Forbes, Legal Director

Yeah, definitely. And it's in the support that I got when I was at that level from everyone. And what I was taught and going through drafts, sitting down with people who are in my team and them talking me through various things. 

And I just do how I learned, basically as well, and to try and pass that on. And as I say, I'm involved in delivering training sessions for the junior lawyers as well. 

I put my hand up to be involved in that because that benefited me when I was an NQ.

00:12:21 David Lee, Host

And Nina, you're at the early stages of your career. What are your ambitions as you look ahead?

00:12:31 Nina Munro, Solicitor

I think I'm quite open to the future. That's always been my attitude. 

When I was talking about what I did at uni, and not really knowing. I think I've let it flow and what I really like is that is very much supported at Brodies. They're relaxed about their approach. 

They want you to be ambitious, and they want you to progress, and they will absolutely support you in that. But also, they will let you make your own decisions about when you feel ready to do those things. 

I think being at an early stage, the next step for me, would probably be senior solicitor. That's in about a year or two and then you can climb the ladder from there over the steps of PQE.  That is something I definitely would like to explore. 

As Rory was saying, having had that experience for me anyway of having done the summer placement, and then being a trainee in this team. I've really had the benefit of learning from certain colleagues in particular who have been there the whole time.

For example, my mentor from summer placement is in my team now, has always supported me. He's kept in touch with me, even between summer placement and traineeship, which was a two-year period. He kept in touch with me when I was in different departments. 

I remember him saying to me in my summer placement - because honestly, I couldn't believe how much support there was when I did my summer placement and I kept thanking him and being very grateful. He was like "well, it's a pay it forward situation. I hope one day you're able to do this for somebody else." 

I think that is my main ambition, to be able to pay that forward and give somebody else the experience I've had. 

Funnily enough, I've got a summer placement starting in a couple of weeks, so already I'm becoming that mentor role that I had the benefit of when I was in third year of uni. 

In a more work-based approach, what's really good about Brodies is there is so much option and scope to do different things and work in different areas of real estate.

I mean, it is as we said, it's so varied and I really like that tangible work that we were talking about where you do the buying of an asset and then manage it going forward. And I've done a few of those already and hope to keep that on. 

And on top of that, I'm also considering going down a dual-qualification route as well and that's something that Brodies really supports. As I say, it's just great value to be a be in a position where you can be relaxed about progression, but there are so many options. So, you can do whatever you choose and that's really positive for me.

00:15:09 David Lee, Host

Great stuff. Thanks, Nina and Rory coming back to you. 

Being a lawyer means you need to know about the law, and that's something that clients will value and obviously expect, quite understandably. But what are those other qualities that you think make a really good real estate lawyer?

00:15:27 Rory Forbes, Legal Director

One part of the job is doing the legal work, but you've got to get the work in and build relationships with clients and keep them happy.

Knowledge and insight of the market and sectors as well. Real estate is a very transactional-focused sector. You need to know who the big players are in the market, what markets are doing well, what opportunities there are. Having that knowledge of who's spending money, who's going to be looking at buying buildings, who's going to be looking at taking leases, etc and who to target for your business development. That's a key thing as well. 

So not just having the knowledge of the law but having the knowledge of the market that that you're operating in is a big thing.

In the real estate world, it's a transactional seat. People are there to do deals from start to finish and want to do them as quickly as possible, and want the advice to be given in a clear, concise way, a lot of the time. 

So, being able to explain things simply and cut through the legal jargon, as we say sometimes and simplify things for clients, definitely is a big factor as well.

00:16:33 David Lee, Host

Ok. And you've touched a few times, Rory on business development. That's something that can be a bit Marmite among lawyers, some quite like the idea of business development, some are a bit scared of it. 

You sound like you embrace that and realise that's a crucial part of your job?

00:16:10 Rory Forbes, Legal Director

Yeah and I just enjoy it as well. In terms of personality etc and going out and building the relationships with people and talking through. A lot of the time when you're doing it, you may be talking about some of the deals and talking about the law some of the time, but it’s actually about then getting to know the people. 

I just enjoy that as well - having a chat about what's going on in your life, what's going on outwith, what kind of things are you into? I'm a big golf fan. So, when I meet people who are golfers as well, it's great. So yeah, I enjoy it. Certainly, embrace it. 

And again, it's when we were talking about misconceptions, it's one of the things that you might not think that you're going to be doing in your role as a real estate lawyer. During university you are coming through thinking it's all very technical-based. But there's this whole other side to it of going out and building relationships with clients.

00:17:38 David Lee, Host

Interesting. Thanks very much.

And what about from your point of view, Nina, what do you think are those qualities that you have? And more broadly what makes a good real estate law? 

00:17:50 Nina Munro, Solicitor

I'd agree with everything Rory said. 

From my perspective, I've really noticed how important it is to be organised in terms of inbox management, expectation management and also the project management side of things because that is essentially what we are doing day-to-day for our clients.

We're managing a number of different projects and for the clients often those are the most important thing going on in their work at that time, and but we have maybe five or six of those to manage in one day.

It's making sure that we communicate effectively. For me at a junior stage, it's communicating effectively with colleagues and clients, to make sure I manage expectations across different work I'm doing for different supervisors, different work I'm doing different partners and then the different work I'm doing for different clients as well in terms of a client-facing perspective. 

So it's those key things of organisation and communication - and then also just generally being enthusiastic and proactive towards the work we do. 

That plays a huge role in the business development side of things, as Rory was saying. It's interesting because I know, as you say it's like Marmite, some people don't like it. 

One of my colleagues said to me the other day that it is arguably one of the easiest parts of our job, if you're a personable and friendly person, who's confident and able to do that. 

He was totally right. Because we're given that ability to go out and just meet people. And actually, you could end up meeting your friends as well as networking contacts.

So, I think it all comes back to organisation and communication in various different forms, I would say.

00:19:28 David Lee, Host

Thanks very much. And Rory, just looking at some external factors, real estate law is always going to be affected by changes to the economy as we know - that's an obvious one - but also wider society. 

We're in the midst of what's usually called the energy transition at the moment, a huge focus on sustainability - what impact is that transition having on real estate and the work that you do?

00:19:52 Rory Forbes, Legal Director

Various impacts. Personally for me, I was involved in the Ardersier Port transaction just completed over the last couple of years and John Swinney, First Minister, was on site opening it. 

It's had a lot of press, and I was involved in that transaction – a completely new type of work stream for me - being involved in something like that, in buying that port and funding it…so that's just one aspect for me personally having dealt with that particular type of transaction. 

Generally in terms of the legislation that's coming in now and upgrades that are potentially being needed to buildings to make them more energy efficient and comply with all the laws… there's, as we see it on transactions, there's who pays for that if you're buying or selling a building. Potentially there's going to be some upgrades required to buildings at a certain point in time. 

Similar on leasing transactions – we're seeing a lot of landlords and tenants, a lot of tenants coming into new buildings and wanting to make sure the buildings are sustainable and can tick boxes for, having that sustainability criteria. 

So, we're actually seeing a lot of negotiations in leases; we call them green leases now where they've got, basically a schedule of three or four pages on how the landlord and tenant will work together to improve the energy efficiency of the building and things like that. 

You just never saw that when I first started - 10 years ago, green leases weren't a thing -but now they are. And there's a bit of negotiation in that because each, landlord and tenant have their own ways of thinking how they want to do things. 

A tenant, for example, a big retail tenant who's got a massive portfolio, will have their own initiatives that they do for their green agenda across their portfolio. They don't want to be tied to certain landlords’ agenda. So, there's sometimes a bit negotiation in the clauses and the leases of how that all gets dealt with and how the parties work together. 

There's definitely been a big shift over the last couple of years in terms of how that's impacted the work we do.

00:22:01 David Lee, Host

Thanks very much. And do you enjoy that, Nina - these things that are happening in the background, sometimes it's a new piece of legislation which is more tangible… 

having to react to all those different kinds of expectations and legislative changes and regulations, is that something that you enjoy?

00:22:23 Nina Munro, Solicitor

Yeah. It's super interesting and it does, and I touched on maybe not enjoying the theoretical aspects as much, but it is quite nice when it's balanced in I think with the practical aspect. It obviously does have a huge impact on what we do in terms of new legislation. 

One of our big principles and a lot of the asset management stuff we do, is tacit relocation. So, the idea that a lease can just run beyond expiry if neither party take action to terminate it and that will automatically continue for a year. 

There's big changes in that law that we're expecting to see, the bill hasn't gone through yet, but our practice development lawyers have been really on it with giving us updates on that. We have weekly briefings where we talk about updates in the law and it is really interesting to see. 

I enjoy the challenge of needing to react and read up on these things and make sure that we react accordingly and advise our clients accordingly. 

It was the same thing the other week, when rent controls were said to going to be starting to apply to student accommodation. That was a big deal for a lot of our clients. I could hear partners in the office reacting to that and the way they were dealing with it. It's really interesting and very valuable to be able to sit in the office and hear those conversations and learn from them in terms of how I might deal with that when I'm later down the line in my career.

00:23:50 David Lee, Host

And finally, it certainly sounds from speaking to both of you today, both you are quite happy with the path that you're on. 

You're very much enjoying working in real estate law. What would be your message to your younger selves? 

Rory - looking back, anybody thinking about career in real estate law who perhaps wasn't as enthusiastic as you were back in the day.

What's your message to them, from what you know now?

00:24:16 Rory Forbes, Legal Director

I would probably just say keep an open mind about it if you're coming into your traineeship and you get given a seat in real estate, and you think it's maybe not your first choice. 

Just keep an open mind and ask a lot of questions. Maybe I probably was guilty of not, because I had this conception at university fairs and things like that, asking a lot about court seats and things like that. 

Ask questions about what real estate lawyers do on a day-to-day basis. There's just much more to it than just sitting at your desk - one day doing a lease, you can be out and about meeting people where you can be delivering a training session or you can be doing a podcast like this. 

So there's just various elements to it. So, keep an open mind and ask questions when you get the chance.

00:25:02 David Lee, Host

Also, that issue you mentioned earlier on about when you are working in real estate law, just seeing tangible things come out of the ground.

00:25:10 Rory Forbes, Legal Director

Yeah, definitely. And walking past, as I say, shopping centres that you bought or being in a shopping centre and you've done a lease for, definitely.

00:25:21 David Lee, Host

And what about you, Nina? What's your advice to your younger self and other young lawyers coming into the profession? Definitely to give real estate some serious thought and give it a go?

00:25:32 Nina Munro, Solicitor

Yeah, 100%. And as Rory said, it's about keeping that open mind and being enthusiastic towards all these things.

 I had such a positive traineeship experience because I took every new seat as a challenge and where I was put. I tried not to go in thinking about what others have said about it, or what it might be like. 

Just try not to second guess things and just go through and see what fits for you and you'll only learn that if you experience different things.

 I'd really advise against doing a traineeship where you're in court the entire time or where you're in a transactional seat the entire time because I think we're lucky in a way that a legal traineeship allows you to experience those different things, because lots of other grad schemes wouldn't and lots of other careers wouldn't. 

There is always an option to make a change regardless of the stage of your career. Don't panic about pigeonholing yourself, because you won't. It's just about keeping that open mind and going into it with no expectation and trying to squash those conceptions that you might have. 

I would say getting practical experience was a huge help for me in working out why I liked it, and it was totally different to the university course. 

My advice would be don't make decisions just based on what you've studied at university, because actually you will find in practice it's quite a different setting. 

As I say, I wouldn't have necessarily gone to a shopping centre and thought about that thing before, but now I absolutely would.

00:27:10 David Lee, Host

Thanks very much indeed to Nina Munro and Rory Forbes for their great insights today and their real enthusiasm for real estate law. 

And wherever you are in your career, if you want to find out more about taking the next step in your journey at Brodies, please go to brodies.com/careers.

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