Luke is a Partner based at the Freeths Liverpool office. He specialises in Real Estate and Banking & Finance. Click here for his profile on the Freeths website.
He is listed as a Recommended Lawyer in the Legal 500 (2020 edition):
"Luke is an excellent lawyer and particularly skilled in his ability to unlock perceived legal roadblocks with intelligent drafting solutions, every client’s dream. He is highly efficient and the legal drafts are more often than not, back with the other side within 24 hours. He is a pleasure to work with and has a firm but polite approach when dealing with his opposite number, exactly how business should be undertaken."
- Can you tell us a bit about your background, and your role at Freeths?
I trained with DWF in Liverpool between 2005 and 2007, then went through the ranks from solicitor to partner between 2007 and 2018. I started at Freeths in April 2018, alongside Andy Nichol, our brief was to establish and grow a Liverpool office for the firm. As at March 2020 we had grown to a team of 10 and added employment, construction, corporate and sports lawyers to the team, as well as growing the real estate team to 6.
- What has been the most memorable piece of work you have been involved in?
About 3 or 4 years ago we were tasked with exchanging contracts on the acquisition of 3 shopping centres before Christmas. The deal value was more than £150m and there was lots of due diligence to co-ordinate in a short space of time. With time running out I headed down to London to the vendor’s solicitor’s office on the last working day before Christmas with orders not to leave until the deal was done. After a frantic day of face to face negotiation the deal was finally agreed and signed off just in time to run back to Euston to make the last train back to Liverpool.
- How’s business at the moment?
Challenging. In the commercial world many clients are focusing on getting their own houses in order and reducing their own outgoings, so we are not seeing the same levels of transactional activity that existed before Covid19.
- In the Covid19 era, what are the main challenges you face?
Keeping in touch with colleagues and clients is the most obvious issue. The CBD in Liverpool is small and the number of clients and contacts that you meet daily is something that I took for granted until it was gone.
- What opportunities can you see?
Technology has played a big part in coping with Covid19. The use of electronic signatures, virtual meetings, and secure data rooms to transmit documentation has become the new normal. As a result, those transactions that have continued have tended to complete faster than they might otherwise have done. The opportunity is there to continue to embrace that technology and use it to serve our clients and colleagues better post-Covid. I would be disappointed to see a return to quill and ink.
- How have you found lockdown?
There have been ups and downs. Balancing work with home schooling 3 children is not straightforward, but you have to look on the bright side. 2 of my children are very young and most weeks I am out of the house before they are up and back home when they are in bed, so to be able to see them for breakfast, lunch and dinner and take them for a walk or kick a ball in the back garden an opportunity to be cherished.
- How have you kept in touch with colleagues?
I speak regularly with the real estate team and we have a Liverpool office team call twice a week, the second of which has more recently become a video call that tends to involve a quiz. There are also regular cross-office calls and the “FreethSpirit” magazine to keep us in touch with one another across the country.
- What about clients?
Video calls have become very popular, which is at least an incentive to have a shave and throw on a shirt (even if it remains shorts and flip flops below the desk). Virtual coffees, virtual drinks. I have probably spoken to clients more in the last few weeks than I would do ordinarily. I have definitely taken more calls at weekends than ever before, in most cases because people genuinely have forgotten what day of the week it is.
- What do you think the biggest change will be post lockdown?
I think working from home is here to stay. It has been far easier to function every day at home than I expected it to be and with some obvious benefits to the business (rental costs), environment (less travel = less pollution) I can envisage the day when most of us are spending a certain percentage of our working week at home.
- When they reopen, What restaurant you will visit?
Lots of them. If my parents, in-laws and extended family are to be believed then they are missing my children terribly. So, as much as I have enjoyed the extra time with my children, there would appear to be several willing babysitters and a few date nights on the horizon.
