About PLC Property

A description of the PLC Property professional support service.

To find out more or register for a free trial, click here or call the PLC on 020 7202 1220

PLC Property
Contents

Online professional support

PLC Property provides a specialist online service that will:

 

Run by a team of former property lawyers

The service is designed and run by Practical Law Company's team of property specialists, who have had extensive experience of property law in practice. PLC's professional support teams are not employed as solicitors or barristers and the individuals are not practising:

  • Hazel Barton, who worked at McKenna & Co on qualification before moving to Argles & Court for six years as a commercial property partner. Hazel later worked for Herbert Smith and Cripps Harries Hall before joining the Practical Law Company in 2002 as a member of the PLC Property team. Hazel is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Caroline Cox, who trained at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and joined their real estate department in September 2001. She spent seven years there after qualification advising both private and public sector clients on a variety of property and planning transactions. Prior to training as a solicitor Caroline worked for eight years in both the private and public sectors as a town planner. She is a member of the Royal Town Planning Institute. Caroline joined PLC in December 2008. Caroline is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Suzanne Dray, who trained at Burges Salmon and qualified into their commercial property practice, specialising in property insolvency transactions. She moved to Herbert Smith, spending six years in the commercial property team, acting for development clients and providing corporate support. In 2001 Suzanne became the real estate PSL at Mayer Brown. Suzanne joined PLC in September 2011. Suzanne is a non-practising solicitor.

  • Sue Highmore, who qualified into the Real Estate Department of Linklaters in September 1983, handling investment work, major development projects and advising landlords and tenants of commercial property. From 2002 she headed up the Real Estate PSL service, with particular interest in training and precedent development. Sue joined PLC Property in August 2009. Sue is not practising at PLC.

  • Louise Jones, who trained at Maples Teesdale and qualified into the commercial property department in September 2001. She spent six years there after qualification working on a variety of transactions including acquisitions, disposals, landlord and tenant and secured lending matters. In 2007, she moved to SJ Berwin as a professional support lawyer. Louise joined PLC Property in October 2008. Louise is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Rowena Karim, who trained at Trowers & Hamlins and joined their commercial property department on qualification in October 2002. She spent four years there working on a broad range of transactions including commercial acquisitions, disposals and lettings before joining PLC Property in December 2006. Rowena is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Elisabeth Lindsay, who trained at Trowers & Hamlins and practised in the commercial property department for nearly five years after qualifying in 2000, where she worked on a range of transactions for clients in the public and private sectors. Elisabeth joined Practical Law Company in 2005 as one of the PLC Property team. Elisabeth is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Yassir Mahmood, who qualified in 2001 and spent six years working for K&L Gates, where he was an associate in the construction and engineering group. Yassir has advised on the negotiation of building contracts and professional appointments, as well as international engineering projects and PFI transactions. He has also represented clients in adjudication and litigation. Yassir’s time at K&L Gates included a secondment to the legal department of a well-known construction contractor, and he was also involved in drafting the latest RICS standard forms of consultant appointment, due to be published in 2008. He is a member of the Society of Construction Law. Yassir joined PLC Construction in December 2007. Yassir is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Jonathan Marshall, who trained at Paisner & Co (now Berwin Leighton Paisner) and spent three years there after qualification (1996-1999), working on a variety of commercial property matters. In 2000, Jonathan moved first to Russell-Cooke, again practising in commercial property, and then to Devonshires, where he spent four years, mainly acting for housing associations on acquisitions, before becoming a property professional support lawyer in 2005. He joined PLC Property in February 2006. Jonathan is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Nikki Martin, who trained at Clarke Willmott and joined their commercial property department on qualification in 2001. She then worked at Burges Salmon before moving to the real estate team at PinsentMasons. In 2005 Nikki joined Osborne Clarke where she acted for banks and financial institutions on the provision of loans to borrowers for acquisition and development purposes and also specialised in advising administrators, liquidators and creditors on corporate and individual insolvency property issues. Nikki joined PLC in October 2008. Nikki is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Fiona Montagu, trained at Allen & Overy and qualified in 1996. She worked as a company/commercial lawyer for four years before moving across to property. Fiona joined PLC Property from Shearman & Sterling in February 2010. Fiona is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Iain Murdoch, who joined the Practical Law Company in January 2007 from Taylor Wessing, where he was a senior associate in the construction and engineering group. Iain specialises in non-contentious construction law, having worked for property owners and occupiers, developers, lenders, contractors and consultants. Whilst specialising in non-contentious negotiation, contract drafting and reporting work, Iain has also advised on settlement of disputes, on adjudications and on pre-action stages of construction disputes. He trained at Lewis Silkin before joining Speechly Bircham following qualification and whilst at Speechly Bircham, undertook a part-time secondment to an international construction and engineering contractor's in-house legal department. Iain is a member of the Society of Construction Law and is head of PLC Construction. Iain is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Sonia Noon, who trained with SNR Denton (at that time, Denton Hall Burgin & Warrens) and qualified in 1993. Following work at a number of smaller firms, Sonia joined the property department of Druces & Attlee in 1996, where she advised a range of clients, including pension funds and syndicates of private investors. In 2001, Sonia moved to Lawrence Graham LLP, where she worked for nearly six years in the real estate department, acting for developers and institutions advising on a variety of property matters ranging from sales and purchases and landlord and tenant matters to the development of a large regional shopping centre. Sonia joined PLC Property in April 2007. Sonia is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Judith Pain, who trained at Pritchard Englefield and Tobin before moving to Allen & Overy, where she worked for thirteen years, specialising in commercial property. She spent the first seven years working on transactions, and then set up and ran the professional support service for the property department before joining Practical Law Company in 2000. Judith is head of PLC Property. Judith is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Liz Parkinson, who joined Norton Rose on qualification in 1988 before moving to the commercial property departments of first Slaughter and May and then Simmons and Simmons. More recently she was a partner in the West End firm of Collins Benson Goldhill. Before joining Practical Law Company in 2004, Liz obtained a masters degree in European Real Estate at Kingston University. Liz works on PLC Property. Liz is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Katharine Paulson, who joined Macfarlanes as a newly qualified solicitor in 1994 where she worked for 9 years specialising in estate, residential and agricultural law. She worked briefly as an in-house lawyer for a construction company giving general property law advice before joining PLC in October 2011. Katharine is currently a non-practising solicitor.

  • Chloe Shanley, trained at Winward Fearon LLP (now Maxwell Winward LLP) and specialised in property litigation upon qualification in 2003. She then joined Nabarro LLP in 2007 where she advised large institutional landlords, developers and commercial tenants on all core property litigation matters. Chloe joined PLC in 2010. Chloe is a non-practising solicitor.

For the complete details of the team, see, PLC Property professional support team (www.practicallaw.com/8-200-9033).

 

Supported by the Practical Law Company professional support team

The PLC Property professional support team is supported by the Practical Law Company professional support team, which comprises over 90 former practitioners with experience in corporate law, finance, tax, banking, insolvency, intellectual property, copyright, competition, employment, pensions, environment and dispute resolution.

For details of the teams, see Professional support team (www.practicallaw.com/4-103-0546).

And a consultation board of leading experts

The PLC Property professional support team is also supported by a consultation board of leading experts, who give advice on the direction of the service and are used as a sounding board on points of law and practice:

  • Andrew Campbell, Clarke Willmott.

  • John Christian, Pinsent Masons.

  • Peta Dollar, Freelance lecturer, trainer and writer.

  • Nicholas Eden, Kinney Green Stanford Webster.

  • Ross Fairley, Burges Salmon.

  • Stephen Fitzsimons, Nabarro Nathanson.

  • Stephan Ford, BPP Professional Education Law School.

  • Michael Garson, Kagan Moss & Co.

  • Susan Guy, Royal London Asset Management.

  • Carol Hopper, Allen & Overy.

  • Caroline Hutton, Enterprise Chambers.

  • Rupert Jones, Weil Gotshal & Manges.

  • Vivien King, Bond Pearce.

  • Pascal Lalande, HM Land Registry.

  • Judith Pike, Walker Morris.

  • Simon Ricketts, SJ Berwin & Co.

  • Neil Walker, Freeth Cartwright LLP.

For full details of the Consultation board members, see PLC Property Consultation board (www.practicallaw.com/4-200-5918).

 

Providing a revolutionary service

PLC Property is a revolutionary professional support service that gives property practitioners a level of support that was previously available only to those firms with dedicated professional support lawyers (PSLs). PLC Property brings this quality of support to a wider range of practitioners.

 

To complement internal know-how functions

The service is also valuable to firms with dedicated PSLs, allowing them to focus on a range of tasks, which are essential to a legal department but which can be neglected if all resources have to be deployed in identifying and processing raw, generic information.

The following is a list of some of the tasks, which will have significant benefits for a legal department and which need to be handled by a lawyer with a detailed knowledge of the firm's client base and a good understanding of the current transactions being undertaken:

  • Identifying and capturing know-how generated by fee earners through transactions and integrating that with the PLC Property materials.

  • Drafting precedent documents focused on specific clients.

  • Producing tailored client know-how materials.

  • Responding to consultation papers, taking account of specific client interests.

  • Delivering training to ensure that fee earners have absorbed new law and the impact of new cases.

  • Delivering training programmes to newly qualified fee earners to ensure that they are adequately prepared and supported.

  • Providing support for transactions in terms of research, analysis of specific areas of law, and writing briefs to counsel.

PLC Property can be the invisible knowledge foundation of a law firm.

 
 

Components of the service

Content may be accessed either through one of the different resource types (see Resources) or through the relevant topic (see Topics).

Resources

The primary content is contained in the following resources:

The Practice notes, Standard documents, Standard clauses and Drafting notes, Checklists and Training are listed under the Resources section on the left hand side of the PLC Property homepage.

The Resources also include:

Topics

PLC Property covers subjects of law and practice relevant to property law practitioners. Each subject is referred to as a topic under which all content (Legal updates, Practice notes, Standard documents, Standard clauses and Drafting notes) is categorised. The subjects are listed in the topic index.

The following table lists all the topics of particular relevance to property practitioners.

To access the PLC Property topics, see PLC Property index (www.practicallaw.com/6-103-1074). In addition, the topics on the PLC Property home page include a link to the Legal concepts (www.practicallaw.com/3-103-2070) topic (which include negligence, nuisance and human rights).

To access the complete topic list for the Practical Law Company, see Index (www.practicallaw.com/6-103-1074).

Using the topic index

The topic index provides a direct way in which to view what content there is for each particular subject area. Click on each topic to see the content, which is displayed under one of the "tabs", as follows:

  • "All": All resources including Practice notes, Standard documents, Standard clauses, Drafting notes, Checklists, Legal updates, Articles, Glossary terms, Case studies, Forms and External resources.

  • "Practice notes": Practice notes, Quick guides and overview Practice notes.

  • "Standard documents": Standard documents, Standard clauses, Drafting notes and Case studies.

  • "Checklists": Checklists

  • "Legal updates": All legal updates on that topic. The legal updates can be arranged in date order, with the option to display the most recent item at the top or bottom.

  • "Articles": Feature-length articles from PLC Magazine and the PLC Cross-border at the top or bottom.

  • "Glossary": Glossary terms.

Legal updates

What Legal updates cover

Legal updates cover:

  • Significant new cases and their implications.

  • New and draft legislation and its effects.

  • Developments in practice and procedure.

  • Consultation papers from government, industry bodies and the Law Commission.

  • Major market trends.

Form of Legal updates and e-mail service

Most Legal updates comprise:

  • A short abstract that describes the subject matter of the update.

  • A concise summary (the speedread), which is displayed in the e-mail sent to subscribers but collapses when the full version of the Legal update is accessed.

  • A more detailed report, which usually includes a background and comment.

In the case of developments which are reported only briefly, the full report appears in the e-mail as the speedread is omitted from these Legal updates.

The Legal updates include links to source texts, such as transcripts and legislation, where these are freely available.

For an example of a Legal update, see Court limits statutory rights for internal works without planning permission (www.practicallaw.com/5-200-3570), which covers the High Court decision in Northampton Borough Council v Secretary of State for the Home Department and Land Securities Properties Limited, [2005] EWHC 168.

Access to Legal updates

The Legal updates may be accessed:

  • By e-mail.

    The Legal updates are sent out by e-mail on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. Users may choose how frequently to receive e-mails (see PLC Property E-mail Service). To view the archive of e-mails sent, see PLC Property E-mail archive (www.practicallaw.com/T2016).

    The e-mail contains the title and the abstract summary of the Legal updates sent together with a "Read more" link, which will take the user to the complete Legal update.

    If no Legal updates are being sent on a particular day, an e-mail is sent out to users to say that there are no new items. Users may elect not to receive this "no new items" e-mail (see E-mail preferences).

  • From the PLC Property homepage.

    The Legal updates appear at the top centre of the PLC Property homepage. The titles of the most recent Legal updates appear on a rolling basis under Updates. By clicking on the link, View updates, the updates for the last week are displayed, with the options of viewing the updates for that day, the last month or the last two months. Earlier updates can be accessed either by using the search view or the Legal update archive in the relevant part of the topic index.

Function of Legal updates

The Legal updates explain the practical implications of important new developments but shield practitioners from unnecessary information. They are complete in themselves but include hypertext links to source materials where appropriate. Where necessary, the transaction support materials (Practice notes, Standard documents, Standard clauses and Drafting notes) are updated to reflect developments.

Unlike other services, we do not just pass on new information. Nor do we aim to be the first to report on it. We evaluate and select it first and, where necessary, add our own analysis and comment. We aim to protect practitioners from the avalanche of raw legal information, not to add to it.

Using Legal updates for training or marketing

The Legal updates can be used for training and marketing purposes. If you would like to incorporate them into marketing materials, please contact the PLC helpline (www.practicallaw.com/A17385).

PLC Property publish a Quarterly update training programme based on selected Legal updates. For more information, see Training.

Practice notes

Content and function of Practice notes

Practice notes are concise practical explanations of core transactions and background law, providing key guidance for frontline lawyers. They are an up-to-date, reliable statement of practice and law for practitioners of all levels of experience. For more junior lawyers, they will give an understanding of the area of law not yet acquired through practice.

The Practice notes include references and hypertext links to further relevant materials and to source texts.

For an example Practice note, see Landlord's consent for dealings with a lease - the Landlord and Tenant Act 1988 (www.practicallaw.com/A16911).

For a list of Practice notes currently on the site, see PLC Property: Practice note (www.practicallaw.com/0-200-9145).

Practice notes are kept up to date

The Practice notes are continuously maintained and kept up to date, and include links to relevant Legal updates.

Standard documents, Standard clauses and Drafting notes

Library of Standard documents, Standard clauses and Drafting notes

PLC Property provides a library of Standard documents and clauses, with accompanying Drafting notes, for use in mainstream commercial property and certain residential property transactions:

The Standard documents and clauses are drafted to strike a fair balance between the parties, although they are drafted from the point of view of the party that would normally be responsible for preparing the first draft.

The detailed Drafting notes that accompany each Standard document and clause provide the information that the user needs to adapt the document to the particular transaction, including adapting it to favour one party more strongly.

The Drafting notes:

  • Provide information on the transaction context of the document.

  • Explain the objective of each clause.

  • Highlight the legal and negotiating issues of each clause from the point of view of each of the parties.

Note that PLC Property is gradually introducing integrated drafting notes into the web view of the Standard documents. These integrated notes will give brief warnings, explanations and directions and will link to Practice notes and other relevant drafting notes. They are designed to provide more immediate help with drafting and negotiation.

For an example of a Standard clause and Drafting note, see Break clauses for leases (www.practicallaw.com/1-107-4768) and its accompanying Drafting note (www.practicallaw.com/4-107-4390).

Standard documents and Drafting notes are kept up to date

The Standard documents, clauses and Drafting notes are kept up to date as law and practice develop. Details of changes made to Standard documents and clauses are recorded in resource histories accessed from the summary section at the top of each Standard document or clause. The changes are also recorded in a Legal update, which is sent out by e-mail, giving users sufficient information to identify what changes may need to be made to draft documents that they are currently working on, or to their own firm's document collection.

Following a change in case law, it may not always be appropriate to change a Standard document, either at all or immediately. The Drafting note will be updated to refer to the change and to link to the relevant update on the case and will identify the situation where an amendment may need to be made to the Standard document.

Using Drafting notes

The Drafting notes are a valuable transaction support tool for practitioners of all levels of qualification and experience. They are detailed and up to date.

They are, however, of particular value for the less experienced fee-earner. They facilitate:

  • The use of the Standard document to which the Drafting note refers, enabling the user to prepare a first draft document appropriate for the particular transaction.

  • The negotiation of first draft documents that have been received which are not PLC Property Standard documents.

The Drafting notes are also a valuable teaching aid as they can readily be used as the basis of a training seminar for the 0-4 year qualified practitioners.

Format of Standard documents

The Standard documents and clauses are available both on the web and in Microsoft Word 6.0 format. The Word version includes logical styles, automatic table of contents, numbering and cross-referencing (see How do I use the PLC Word template? (www.practicallaw.com/A16094)).

For details on converting PLC Standard documents into your firm's own house style, see PLC Firmstyle (www.practicallaw.com/4-376-6549).

For information on PLC's automated documents, see PLC FastDraft (www.practicallaw.com/1-379-9363).

Forms

In addition to the Standard documents, there are links to a set of forms commonly used in property transactions (including Land Registry, landlord and tenant and sample SDLT forms) (see Forms (www.practicallaw.com/T1629)).

Checklists

PLC Property is currently developing a series of checklists. These are designed to provide a practical, step-by-step guide to various aspects of transactions involving property. They will be of particular benefit to trainees and junior solicitors and will provide a good basis for training materials.

For a list of checklists currently on the site, see PLC Property: Checklists (www.practicallaw.com/8-201-2605).

Residential property materials

When PLC Property was first established, its focus was primarily on commercial property. However, many of the resources are also relevant to lawyers dealing with residential property.

More recently, PLC Property has begun to broaden the scope of the service to include materials of more relevance to residential property. This is in response to requests from subscribers dealing with mixed-use developments and subscribers who specialise in residential property.

For a list of materials that are particularly useful in connection with residential property, see Residential property materials (www.practicallaw.com/7-378-7649).

Training

The Training materials provide a flexible framework within which practitioners and professional support lawyers can plan and manage on-going professional development. They were developed in response to feedback from subscribers on legal training. The Training materials can be divided into two broad categories:

  • The Quarterly update (published in November, February, May and August).

    The training items in the Quarterly update are based upon selected legal updates and focus upon key cases and important changes in law and practice.

  • Topic based Training materials.

    These focus on particular aspects of other PLC Property resources, in particular Standard documents, Checklists and Practice notes.

Research by PLC Property has shown that over 1,600 providers of legal services are independently registered with the Law Society as in-house continuing professional development (CPD) course providers. Registered organisations are authorised to allocate CPD credit to courses organised for their own staff and non-fee-paying guests. Sole practitioners and small firms have the ability to join together as a "consortium" offering in-house courses. It costs £200 to register with the Law Society.

Once authorised, course providers may self-accredit suitable courses, which may include material:

  • Prepared by and/or presented by staff.

  • Prepared by and/or presented by external speakers (who do not need to be themselves authorised).

The PLC Property Training materials aim to:

  • Save the course provider the time it would take to prepare detailed material for the course.

  • Provide a quarterly round up of key cases and changes in law and practice.

  • Consolidate the legal and practical issues arising out of the PLC Property documents upon which they are based.

  • Address fundamental and topical areas of law focusing on their practical consequences.

  • Provide source material and links to connected topics, that will provoke participation and debate from attending solicitors and guests.

  • Ensure that the attending solicitors and guests have gained knowledge of the subject at the appropriate level.

The Training materials will allow the course provider to adapt the material to:

  • Be relevant to the nature of the work carried out by the attending solicitors and guests.

  • Highlight particular issues for debate and discussion.

  • Trim or expand the material to fit the time allocated to the course.

  • Suit the level of experience of the attending solicitors and guests.

  • Approach the subject matter either in depth or as an overview.

  • Prepare different types of training session, such as:

    • discussion groups;

    • workshops;

    • case studies; and

    • negotiation exercises.

To view the Training materials currently available, see Training materials (www.practicallaw.com/0-201-6570).

Legislation tracker

The Property legislation tracker (www.practicallaw.com/9-200-0305) shows the progress of selected primary and secondary legislation of particular interest to property law practitioners, from draft and consultation stage to enactment and implementation. Each entry links to either a Legal update or a legislation tracker note, giving more information.

PLC Cross-border Real Estate Handbook

PLC Property subscribers have been given free access to PLC Cross Border, Corporate Real Estate Handbook (www.practicallaw.com/5-502-5494), which includes:

  • Cross-border features on a number of topics, including property investment and due diligence.

  • Q & A guides to commercial property law in 26 jurisdictions. There is also a tool which enables you to create a report on particular aspects of real estate law in selected jurisdictions (see Country Q&A tool (www.practicallaw.com/4-422-1232)).

  • Recommendations of real estate lawyers and law firms.

  • Profiles of recommended lawyers.

PLC Which Lawyer?

PLC Which lawyer? (www.practicallaw.com/6-378-7353) identifies leading lawyers and law firms practising in the core areas of commercial law in jurisdictions around the world.

PLC Glossary

PLC Glossary contains plain-language definitions of key legal and technical terms used in the business law context. It is based on an archive of business legal know-how developed by PLC over the 14 years of its existence.

External resources

The Legal updates, Practice notes and Drafting notes contain links to external source materials (cases, legislation, policy, guidance and consultation papers and external websites) that are relevant to property law practitioners. The collection of these links can be accessed from the External resources (www.practicallaw.com/7-200-9463) page.

Commercial Property Standard Enquiries

The Commercial Property Standard Enquiries (CPSE) are a suite of documents that were prepared by members of the London Property Support Lawyers Group under the sponsorship of the British Property Federation with a view to becoming the industry-standard pre-contract enquiries for commercial property transactions. PLC Property is on the working party to keep the CPSE up to date and publishes the CPSE free of charge to subscribers and non-subscribers to PLC Property.

For more information, see the note, Commercial Property Standard Enquiries (www.practicallaw.com/A25681) and the list of documents comprising the CPSE (www.practicallaw.com/T1613).

Free Thinking

Free Thinking (www.practicallaw.com/2-202-3824) comprises articles contributed to PLC Property that explore issues of interest to property practitioners. These articles are also available free of charge to non-subscribers as a way of promoting debate on topical issues.

 

New content

For a comprehensive note of the new resources added to PLC Property over the last 12 months, see PLC Property: new content (www.practicallaw.com/A28814).

In the top right hand corner of the PLC Property homepage, there are links to the most recently added new content, including links to the most recent PLC Magazine issue.

 

Provisional publishing schedule

The provisional publishing schedule is intended to give an indication of PLC Property's publishing plans for new Standard documents, Practice notes and Checklists for the calendar year. The schedule is revised periodically. The documents and the timings are subject to amendment to reflect any alterations in priority that PLC Property may make either to take account of changes in law and practice, or to accommodate specific projects. The schedule is for information purposes only.

 

Powerful technology

The service is delivered through a web site using advanced technology specifically developed by Practical Law Company to provide a seamless source of managed know-how to the practitioner in an easy-to-access form:

  • Searching. All the text is fully searchable. Searches can be done across all the material or restricted to selected types of material (for example, Standard documents only) or to a specified time period. Subscribers have the option of using a new Google-powered search facility to find material within the site. For more information, see Searching (www.practicallaw.com/A16554).

  • Index. We use special technology developed in-house to index material, which greatly improves the searching process (see Index (www.practicallaw.com/6-103-1074)).

  • Links. Frequent hypertext links guide users around the site, taking them to relevant material.

  • Integration. Our material can be integrated within a firm intranet. In addition, subscribers can integrate their own know-how materials closely with those of the service, whilst maintaining confidentiality. For further information, please contact your account manager, or call the PLC helpline (www.practicallaw.com/A17385).

  • Annotation. PLC Annotation allows subscribers to create and maintain their own notes on PLC resources. For more information, see PLC Annotation (www.practicallaw.com/7-380-9024).

  • Firmstyle. PLC Firmstyle enables your lawyers to download PLC Standard documents automatically from any PLC website into your firm's own presentational style. For details, see PLC Firmstyle (www.practicallaw.com/4-376-6549).

  • FastDraft. Practical Law Company has launched PLC FastDraft, which provides sets of automated documents for key transactions combined with know-how. PLC FastDraft rivals or betters custom solutions developed for the largest firms, helping law firms and legal departments to control costs. For details, see PLC FastDraft (www.practicallaw.com/1-379-9363).

 

Advantages

PLC Property is a cost-effective tool for any lawyer, solicitor or barrister, in private practice, in-house or otherwise, working in the property industry. It is also useful for other property professionals, such as surveyors, working in the industry.

It helps to:

  • Save lawyers' time and enhance their capacity to do fee-earning or client-related work.

  • Improve the quality, speed and accuracy of the service to clients.

  • Bring trainees and recently qualified staff up to speed quickly and effectively.

  • Enable firms and legal departments with professional support lawyers to focus resources and time on firm and client-specific know-how, and to find innovative solutions to new transaction problems instead of routine information gathering.

  • Concentrate more attention on using know-how for marketing purposes and making the practice more competitive.

  • Attract, maintain and motivate good lawyers.

For information on how fee-earners and professional support lawyers can use PLC to more efficiently maintain and update precedent banks, see Article, PLC documents: outsourcing your precedent bank (www.practicallaw.com/4-385-9548), PLC Magazine, 2009.

 

Subscribers

Some of the subscribers to the service include:

  • Allen & Overy.
  • Ashfords.
  • Ashurst.
  • Beachcrofts.
  • Berwin Leighton Paisner.
  • Bevan Brittan.
  • Bond Pearce.
  • Burges Salmon.
  • Clyde & Co.
  • Dechert.
  • Freeth Cartwright.
  • Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.
  • Gordons.
  • Jones Day.
  • Lawrence Graham.
  • Linklaters.
  • Macfarlanes.
  • Maxwell Batley.
  • Mishcon de Reya.
  • Nabarro Nathanson.
  • Pinsent Masons.
  • Richards Butler.
  • Russell-Cooke.
  • Slaughter and May.
  • Taylor Wessing.
  • Thomas Eggar.
  • Walker Morris.
  • Wragge & Co.
 

What our subscribers say ...

"PLC Property helps our professional support team to operate efficiently and to focus on the proprietary know-how that forms part of our competitive advantage."

Hugh Crisp, Partner, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

"Particularly useful for commercial property lawyers in small and medium-sized practices - it allows them to operate with confidence without a professional support lawyer."

Peter Dawson, Partner, Russell-Cooke.

"Absolutely invaluable. The Standard Documents have become something of a benchmark for market practice. The service stands out for its direct application to everyday problems and issues."

Graham White, Partner, Slaughter and May.

"The PLC Standard documents and Drafting notes are available throughout our intranet and they now form a major part of our documents library. They are up to date, well drafted and suitable for much of our work. Combined with the e-mail update, it's an efficient and extremely useful service."

Tina Webster, Partner, Thomas Eggar.

"An invaluable resource for all commercial property practitioners. The filtered update, maintained Standard document bank and CPD programme make an excellent package."

Paul Young, Partner, Gordons.

 

Subscribing to PLC Property

For further information on the service and how to subscribe, call the PLC helpline (www.practicallaw.com/A17385).