Throughout my career many attorneys with varying degrees of expertise have worked with me on a variety of Tenant Representation assignments. Many times the attorney is referred by me to my client. Other times, my client already has an attorney. In either case, we work together in negotiating our clients lease.
Before engaging an attorney, there are important qualities that tenants should take into account when weighing which attorney to appoint to review your lease.
Proper Tenant Representation is a process
The steps necessary to define the office space requirement including assessing the space choices, negotiating the best economic transaction and building the space out are only but a few of the numerous factors that go into what will most likely be a twelve month to twenty-four month process depending on the size of your requirement. Clients should not have to allocate their staff's time and resources to the overall process only for the deal to fall apart at the last minute due to avoidable issues. The right attorney will appreciate the time consuming process of the negotiations and utilize their experience to identify what is attainable in the various clauses of the lease. They will also work with the Tenant Rep to assist in providing additional lease protections.
Allow terms and conditions to be negotiated by your Tenant Rep
There are a large number of aspects which will influence the economics of the transaction including but not limited to: code issues, existing conditions, who pays for base building items, the value of options, the credit of the tenant, operating expense exclusions, lease rate, rent abatement, parking concessions, and underlying market conditions. There's no way for an attorney that isn't evaluating tons of facilities and leases each year to assess the economic terms of a particular lease, nor does an attorney have the expertise or market leveraging power to negotiate such terms. The best attorneys bring in a professional Tenant Representative to manage the process for the tenant and negotiate the economic terms of the lease as described above and the best Tenant Reps bring in the right attorney to focus on ways to strengthen the resulting lease language or amendment language based on existing and new legal standards.
Picking the right attorney to review your lease is money well spent
An attorneys lease review including the time necessary to understand the transaction and contribute to ensuing discussions usually only costs a moderate amount of billable hours. This should not be to painful considering the Tenant Rep is paid by the Landlord. A good attorney will turn around any suggestions to a Tenant Representative's comments within days and be available for any necessary conference calls within short notice.
Reaching the right balance is important when selecting an attorney for a lease review. You have the potential of gaining some valuable protection without spending a lot of money. On the other hand you can end up spending a lot of money with the wrong attorney in place resulting in the potential loss of a facility important to your business.
Considering real estate for the most part is your second largest expense behind payroll, the lease review should be thought of as a minor expense.
Selecting a seasoned competent Tenant centric attorney is key and necessitates thorough deliberation.
