Paul Burke likes a joke. As his fellow riders on the Cycle to MIPIM can attest, he can always be relied on for a quip to lighten the mood and raise spirits during the long slog to Cannes. This year offered one of his best.
“This guy’s driving through town with a load of penguins in the back. A policeman pulls him over and says, ‘Sir, you’ve got a load of penguins in the back of your car. We can’t have that. You must take them immediately to the zoo.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yes.’ So off he drives. The next day, the policeman sees the same car drive past, still full of penguins. He flags the man down and says, ‘Sir, we spoke about this yesterday. I told you, you must take these penguins to the zoo.’ ‘I did! They loved it! We’re off to the beach today!’”
As a ride captain, Burke sees the value of using humour to support the rest of the peloton on a journey that can take them to some “very dark places from time to time” – as he puts it, “chatting makes the miles fly by”.
But, with the hardship – and hilarity – of a weather-hit, mud-spattered ordeal out of the way, not to mention the frenetic few days of networking at MIPIM itself, Burke was ready for serious business. On 1 April, his legs barely recovered, he took over as managing partner at Maples Teesdale, and set about building on its reputation as what he describes as “the UK’s leading specialist real estate law firm”.
Three-point plan
On taking over from Chris Wilkinson, who had six years as head of the firm, Burke identified three priorities for his own tenure. First, to enhance Maples Teesdale’s position as “the leading full-service law firm to the real estate industry in the UK” – a task that will not require reinventing the wheel.
“Chris had the very pleasant role of announcing our preliminary results on his last day – another period of double-digit growth in revenue,” Burke says. “After a fairly peculiar year, that was a fantastic result for the firm. It’s great to be able to take on something that is in such strong shape and to carry it forward on that trajectory.”
He is proud of the firm’s history and its relationship with real estate.
“Much like EG, it is very old,” Burke says. “The firm Maples Teesdale and Co was formed in 1875, so in a couple of years we will be 150. Our offices were on the next street along, Frederick’s Place, and on the wall of that building there’s a plaque that commemorates Benjamin Disraeli working there. He was an article clerk. Not a terribly good lawyer, by all accounts, but he went on to do better things – and we have certainly gone on to improve the quality of our lawyers since then.”
Asked to summarise the firm’s USP, Burke emphasises the U. “We are unique. I don’t think there is another firm like us to have such a strong focus on real estate. We have very long-standing relationships with clients, some going back more than 100 years. We are experts in what we do and we have got connections right across the sector. We understand our clients’ businesses inside out, we are there with them through the ups and downs of the economy and try to maximise all the opportunities that are there. I like to say, cut us and we bleed real estate.”
Burke adds that the firm boasts a “strong book of contacts” beyond direct clients. “We work very hard at introducing people to each other,” he says. “Even if we are not active for somebody, if they’re important in the industry, we want to know them. We want to stay in touch with them and we want them to be included in that world that we create.”
That philosophy applies to potential clients who may take the view they need a more full-service firm, something which Burke acknowledges is a “challenge” for Maples Teesdale.
“It’s fair to say that there are operators in the market that do prefer to have a wider service offering from a firm that can, for instance, service cross-jurisdictional work or complex fund formation work,” he says.
“Maybe they have other non-real estate needs across the wider aspects of their business that they feel they need a full-service firm to provide. We are not that sort of firm. But we still stay in touch with them. It’s important for us to maintain those connections with all of the key players in the real estate industry, even if it doesn’t seem likely that we will get them as a client.”
The real estate engine
The firm is adapting to meet the changing needs of clients, so item two on Burke’s agenda is to unlock new practice areas and develop its complementary service offerings, without losing sight of its focus.
“We have got an incredibly strong client base that includes 22 listed companies and several institutional funds,” he says. “As those businesses evolve, the way that they choose and select their legal providers evolves and becomes more sophisticated.”
Burke and many of his colleagues build on their experiences at “silver circle” law firms in shaping Maples Teesdale’s offering.
“We have got many people in the firm who have come from larger firms. Those larger firms are typically corporate-driven. The corporate engine is then supported by other services, including real estate. We turn that on its head here. Real estate is the engine. While we don’t claim to be a full-service firm, we very much like to think we offer a full service to the real estate sector. To be able to do that, those support departments need to be robust and comprehensive. And that’s an evolving beast. In the same way that the industry evolves and certain sectors become a little hotter at any one time, then we need to be able to be on top of that.”
He cites bringing on Tim Dodd as a partner, whose expertise when it comes to the hotels, hospitality and leisure sector “really enhances our offering”.
Burke adds: “With Tim, it’s so much broader than just hotels, because a lot of the types of agreements he advises on have much wider application nowadays, even in the office sector, where so many people are trying to create offices that have that hotel experience.”
Burke feels that in some larger firms with a more “corporate engine room”, real estate is “not viewed as important enough”. He adds, “There’s a bit of a lack of respect if you like. We have worked very hard to make sure it’s not like that here.”
In addition, the firm takes an “extremely collaborative and collegiate” approach to work. “We have got lawyers here who’ve come from much larger firms and who are pleasantly surprised by the way that we operate here. We are all pulling in the same direction. Every client in the firm is important to the whole firm. That enables us to create a much happier workplace because there’s no in-fighting.
“When somebody goes out to meet a client, they come back and they make a note about that meeting and they share it with the rest of the firm. They talk about what they have discussed, what the client’s views of the market are, and what they’re looking at. But also, personal things. That’s an important part of the culture here. And clients tell us they noticed that.”
As well as a client base that includes abrdn, CBRE Investment Management and Columbia Threadneedle Investments, Maples Teesdale does a lot of work for the London offices of US law firms, providing real estate advice for their clients, something that Burke considers “a feather in our cap”.
Similarly, he is pleased to note that it handles a lot of occupational work for other city firms. “If you’re a surgeon and you need some surgery, you don’t go to just anybody,” he says, by way of analogy. “You go to the best bloody surgeon you can find. I’m very proud of the team for enabling us to do all of that.”
The war for talent
Burke’s third pledge is to nurture talent and develop leadership and responsibility skills early in lawyers’ careers.
“In terms of the youth of today and what they want, I think being focused on the real estate sector within the legal profession is very helpful to us, because it attracts a kind of a personality within that group that is slightly different to the rest of the world,” he says.
“A lot of people join the legal profession, seeing it as having a certain reputation or kudos. But when you get into the real estate sector, it is for the long term. You can see the buildings that you’ve advised your clients on buying or building – that means a lot to people. And it is not just about building buildings but building relationships. It’s a people business.”
Noting that this combination of factors leads to a “lot less churn” among junior levels, he adds: “We are obviously very pleased about that and we work very hard to try to encourage that kind of commitment and loyalty.”
Burke feels strongly that Maples Teesdale’s real estate focus and reputation for “delivering quality work for quality clients” makes it a rewarding firm to join. And if that isn’t enough to convince the best and brightest to sign up, at least he can fall back on his penguin joke.
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