Meet our Property Team – A Q&A session with Richard Pike
On Friday 15th November we will be celebrating Bath’s dynamic property sector at the second annual Bath Property Awards, of which we are proud to be the headline sponsor.
Property is important to us. From residential to commercial, from lease negotiations to first time buyers, our teams at Mogers Drewett have a wide variety of complementing skills and expertise to help with it all.
In the run up to the big event we will introduce members of the Bath-based Commercial and Residential Property teams – and share a few little known facts about them.
The fourth in the series is Richard Pike, Partner in the Commercial Property team.
Q: So… what does a Commercial Property lawyer do all day?
A: Every day is a lottery. As head of the Commercial Property team in Bath, my day ordinarily involves a mixture of fee earning, managing the team and helping my Head of Department, putting together fee proposals and getting out and about to meet potential clients.
Q: What is the secret of good Commercial Property lawyer?
A: Quite simply, spending time understanding your client’s business and what it is trying to achieve. It also helps to be able to keep a sense of perspective about life in general and switch off and forget about things over a pint of Gem in the Salamander…
Q: What is your specialism within the team?
A: I specialise in acting for both mineral and aggregates companies and landowners on the management and extraction of mineral deposits.
Q: What did you do before Mogers Drewett?
A: I qualified in the City with Addleshaw Goddard before joining Shepherd and Wedderburn and then spending three years working in-house with the London Development Agency working on large scale infrastructure projects such as the land assembly for the Olympic Park in London and the Emirates Airline cable car over the Thames. I then moved with my young family to Kenya where I practised with one of Nairobi’s largest commercial firms for a couple of years. Upon returning to the UK and moving to Bath, I joined Thrings, where I was a partner in the Commercial Property team, before joining Mogers Drewett in January of this year.
Q: What’s the most memorable transaction you have worked on?
A: Acting for a multinational aggregates operator on a large extension to one of its existing quarries, which involved negotiating a complex series of put and call options and the sale of minerals and rights to work over registered and unregistered land with multiple parties. The transaction lasted for several years.
Q: Did you know…
A: Before qualifying as a solicitor, I spent five years coaching the First XV and teaching history at Pangbourne College in Berkshire.