I decided I wanted to be a lawyer aged 14. My parents’ friends were looking after me while my parents were away. They didn’t have children and wondered what to do with me – we started playing around with words during a game of Scrabble and after that it turned into a career talk because I was slightly argumentative. It struck a chord.
Titmuss Sainer & Webb was a real estate firm before forming an alliance with Dechert Price & Rhoads. The London property guys were worried because they wondered what a US firm would think of real estate. For me, it was an enormous benefit. It opened my eyes to international clients, the wider world, and not just domestic practice.
I really like things that are tangible. You only need to look out at the skyline behind us, like the Cheesegrater and the Walkie Talkie, and I love seeing a project from inception – buying the land, developing it, financing it, managing it, having it sold…
Overseas investors accounted for 64% of all investment in City office space in Q3 last year. When I started it wasn’t as demanding as you just didn’t have global capital moving around to this extent. Real estate is now in the mainstream as a form of investment. Before, it made up around 5% of investor portfolios, but people like Bill Hughes at Legal & General and people who determine asset allocations now say it will become around 20%.
I learnt a very big lesson about being careful early on. As a young, wet-behind-the-ears lawyer, I sent a banker’s draft worth nearly £1m to Linklaters, which was acting for the seller, via a courier and I put one letter of the alphabet in the wrong place. It eventually turned up at Linklaters’ New York office. Linklaters, being the firm they are, were very good about it. They didn’t even charge interest. But there were some very sleepless nights wondering where the hell that money was.
The former chairman of Dechert, Barton Winokur, was an inspirational leader. He said a lot of people are paid by the hour to process things, but we’re not – we’re paid to think. It’s all about judgement calls. Clients expect lawyers to be technically adept, energised and motivated. It’s not like shelling peas.
One transaction that was a turning point for me was in the early ’90s when the partner who was responsible for me gave me a verbal briefing on a file that had been quiet before leaving for a holiday abroad. Then the call came in to say the deal had to be done in two weeks and he came back in three. Mobile phones were very primitive back then. I was a very young partner and I was suddenly leading on a deal by my biggest clients, Nigel Hugill and Robin Butler. That was my first exposure to them – they’re well known in real estate.
Steven Fogel, the former senior partner at Titmuss Sainer, is a creative and imaginative lawyer. He gave me a number of good opportunities to speak on platforms at an age where it was terrifying, but he was confident I could do it. The first time, he put me on a platform with Kirk Reynolds QC, Jonathan Gaunt QC and Lord Neuberger. I was about eight years’ qualified, but they were very generous with their time, instead of thinking they could slaughter me in front of an audience of 50 lawyers.
As an Arsenal fan, I admire Arsène Wenger. He’s so stubborn, but he’s quite a principled guy. Other club managers don’t think integrity is such an important thing. Arsène has been appalling at times, but he hasn’t been as critical about his players as other leaders. That’s the same as being a lawyer – you can, to a point, get things done through fear, but there’s no sustainability in that. It’s very important that people want to work with you.
Sometimes I might be too controlling. Not in the sense that I want to watch your every move, but until I trust someone completely, my first job is to look after the client, otherwise you haven’t got a business. If things go wrong, quite rightly, they won’t call the associate, they’ll call you.
There’s no substitute for hard work. I don’t mean long hours, I mean thinking hard about what you’re doing and always asking if it can be done better or differently. Fundamentally you’ve got to be really good. If you want to get the best work, the best clients are discerning and very sophisticated. You will get found out.
I’ve read a lot of stuff by David Maister. He said life is too short to act for people you don’t like acting for. Although you have to be quite privileged – I don’t want to give the impression I can be fussy – in an ideal world you would genuinely work for people you like.
I don’t read enough novels. I spend most of every working day reading papers. By the time you’re done you want to do something else. I’m interested in sport – my golf handicap is 12 and it won’t get better than that – but when I finish it will be nice to do something different, whether it’s charity work or mentoring.
I hope to be doing the same in five years’ time. I’m fortunate that the way Nabarro is structured means I’m allowed to be front-facing. That really works very well for me. I’m doing what I love.
Ciaran Carvalho is head of real estate at Nabarro
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk