“This expertise, together with a collaborative culture and commercial approach to solving clients’ problems, is why I’m confident the practice is a good fit for my team and our clients. The practice focuses on the whole of the property development life cycle, which is very rare in Melbourne and stands as a real point of difference,” he said.

“I look forward to working with Rhett to continue to build the team and cement Colin Biggers & Paisleys position as the leading provider of legal services to the property and development sector in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.” 

In conversation with Lawyers Weekly, Mr Oliver said the appointment was a “game-changer for the practice”.

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“David’s appointment completes a strategic objective of the practice to have an end-to-end property development legal service offering in Victoria, which complements our property development practices in New South Wales and Queensland.

“The result is that Colin Biggers & Paisley becomes one of the very few legal practices to have this offering in the Victorian market for property developers, and potentially the only practice where property development makes up a core pillar of the firm’s entire practice. Unlike other firms in our space that have this capability, property development and planning, and construction make up two of our four key practice areas. It’s not a sideshow to a big M&A team – it is part of the engine room for our practice, which is important to our people and our clients,” he said.

“What we’ll now offer in Victoria is a specialisation in each segment of the property development life cycle. This ranges from corporate and tax structuring, planning, property transactional and due diligence, finance, hotels, titling, subdivision, sales and leasing, build to rent, and property disputes (including compulsory acquisition and land valuation appeal work), which is very rare.”

This news follows a period of accelerated growth for the firm; their merger with Melbourne-based commercial practice Logie-Smith Lanyon in November 2021 saw the legal practice welcome six new partners, including partner Michael Lanyon to the team. 

This kind of growth will continue to be a priority for the team moving forward, added Mr Oliver.

“We intend to focus very heavily on ‘staking our claim’ in the Melbourne legal services market and leveraging our profile as one of the pre-eminent east coast property and development practices offering end-to-end legal services for property development projects,” he said.

“Across the board we expect to see a year of strong growth subject, of course, to any further ‘pandemic curve balls’ or external shocks that may come our way. The project pipeline of our developer clients remains strong with some projects that were deferred during 2021 now coming online for launch, and pockets of extraordinary transactional activity where markets are running hotter than usual, such as Brisbane.”

Within the property and development space, increasing construction prices and supply issues are causing occasional delays – but Mr Oliver said he was positive 2022 would be a strong year for the market.

“We’re optimistic that new project launches should continue at current levels over the next 12 months, with perhaps a slight uptick in Melbourne where many new applications for inner city projects have been deferred, and also Brisbane due to the strong residential market and 2032 Olympics hype,” he added.

“We’re not expecting enormous increases in new projects as looming rate hikes and signaled increases in the cost of funds combined with construction prices will likely constrain some new project activity. We’re anticipating an increase in inner-city retail leasing and other transactional activity in the east coast capital cities as the current Omicron wave abates and more people return to the office and the city. However, this could be impacted by further waves as new variants emerge.

“It’s hoped that international travel opening up will also see an increase in development and transactional activity in the hotels and tourism space, and student accommodation and education space.”

Despite other challenges arising as a result of the pandemic, Mr Oliver said he saw a lot of opportunity within the current legal landscape.

“There’s been a lot of talk about 2022 being the year of the Great Resignation which for most is viewed as a challenge. We see it as an opportunity. One of the things that is different about our practice is our culture, so for us there is enormous opportunity. We value our people and our clients and we invest in our platforms and systems. 

“We are in the unique position of having internal structures in place and a strategic plan that focuses on balancing the delivery of high-performance client service and excellence in our chosen fields of expertise, with flexibility, career advancement, and a strong culture underpinned by values of loyalty, integrity, respect and balance. We’re seeing how these attributes are attracting talent and like-minded, high performers to our group and the practice more broadly,” he added.   

“Another challenge that has arisen from the pandemic and remote working conditions is the need to adapt to the virtual world, including digital platforms. We were ahead of the game as we completed an IT transformation project just before the pandemic hit which meant that our people could log on from home and it has been more or less ‘business as usual’ for the past two years.”