How Orbital Witness Revolutionised Lease Review at Charles Russell Speechlys

Background:

Charles Russell Speechlys is a leading international law firm focusing on private capital, with a renowned real estate department, providing expert legal services to clients across various sectors. Faced with a high-pressure lease review project the real estate team used Orbital Witness to meet the client’s timeframe and expectations.

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‍Challenge:

The task at hand was to conduct a massive title review project involving a portfolio of 700 properties in less than a week! The client needed the job to be done quickly to inform a bid on the company owning the property portfolio. The client wanted Charles Russell Speechlys to carry out a high level title review to assess material impediments to portfolio restructuring. Even with a large team of experienced real estate lawyers and support teams, the firm had to think creatively about how to meet the client’s requirements and timeframe.

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‍Solution:

To tackle this challenge, the real estate team at Charles Russell Speechlys turned to Orbital Witness.

Orbital Witness: Powering the review process 

Historically, the only way to handle a project of this scale would be to throw bodies at the problem to meet the deadline. Mark White, Partner at Charles Russell Speechlys, estimated that the initial assignment would previously have taken four trainees at least three days to complete - needing to carry out searches on HM Land Registry, order up the documents, and check the titles on 700 properties for red flag items.

Instead, using Orbital Witness, Mark could do the same data analysis task in less than an hour which could then be deployed to prepare a key insights report for the client. Not only did this deliver a whopping time saving, and mean the client’s deadline was comfortably achieved, but it bypassed the need for trainees to carry out a lot of high-pressure work which reduced the risk of mistakes being made.

Using Orbital Witness has transformed the diligence process, and has become an essential tool for lease review projects. The time and effort saved using this technology was simply astounding. It is just so much faster.
- Mark White, Partner, Commercial Real Estate

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Results:

The power of Orbital Witness delivered remarkable results for Charles Russell Speechlys and their client: 

• By leveraging this technology, the real estate team comprehensively and innovatively accomplished the entire brief comfortably within the short turnaround time their client needed. 
• The client had all the information they needed, and time enough to review and consider the information, in order to launch a credible bid for the portfolio.

Mark White told us “using Orbital Witness has transformed the diligence process, and has become an essential tool for lease review projects. The time and effort saved using this technology was simply astounding. It is just so much faster.”