Deloitte Legal hires a team of four from Shoosmiths to form its new UK real estate business

Deloitte Legal hires a team of four from Shoosmiths to form its new UK real estate business

Deloitte terms expanding real estate services to include legal capability as an exciting next step for the firm

Deloitte Legal has announced hiring a team of four new partners from the UK law firm Shoosmiths to establish a new real estate legal business in the UK.

Vaqas Farooq, Wayne Nash, Lisa On-Iam and Dan Hargreaves have joined Deloitte in Manchester as partners. Farooq is to serve as head of real estate legal.

Deloitte has said that the new team would add specialist legal services to its existing offerings for the real estate sector.

The new team brings with it a wealth of experience. While Farooq joins Deloitte after spending 15 years with Shoosmiths as a partner, Nash was with the firm for a decade and lastly led its Manchester office. On-Iam and Hargreaves were associated with Shoosmiths for 10 and six years respectively.

According to Siobhan Godley, lead partner for real estate at Deloitte, expanding real estate services to include legal capability is an exciting next step for the firm.

"Our extensive real estate service offerings such as valuation, planning and development services, ESG consultancy, finance and M&A often require legal advice and problem solving. Combined with our real estate tax and financial advisory capability, the value of our cross-disciplinary delivery model is market leading," Godley said.

Farooq advises developers, occupiers, local authorities and investors on real estate schemes across the UK.

Known as a specialist in development matters, he has acted in many of the country's largest urban regeneration projects and represents several regional and national developers.

Nash specialises in real estate risk management and disputes. On-Iam focuses on investment and real estate finance and Hargreaves advises on the property aspects of partnerships between the public and private sector set up to deliver such schemes.

The new hires by Deloitte have come amid an intensive push by the Big Four to grow their UK legal arms. Both PwC and KPMG announced plans in 2022 to double the size of their teams in the next few years, EY has said that it plans to triple its size.

Michael Castle, the managing partner for Deloitte Legal, termed the arrival of the Shoosmiths team as a testament to the firm's continued commitment to expanding its legal offering.

"In the last 12 months Deloitte Legal has been joined by partners with a variety of specialisms and I am pleased to be adding real estate to our roster of legal expertise," Castle said, adding that all of these hires are in line with the firm's strategic aim of using Deloitte's multidisciplinary capabilities to provide business solutions in response to its clients' legal challenges.