The Blueprint X Tom McGarry
Written by Charlotte Conder with Emily Beniamin - AUPSS Exec
Last week, Emily (current AUPSS Exec and TBB Law Clerk) and I were fortunate enough to sit down with Tom McGarry (Principal at TBB), on behalf of AUPSS, for our inaugural interview of ‘The Blueprint’. Thank you Tom for sharing your time with us.
Our discussion covers his path into his current role, why he chose property, insight into life at TBB and more.
We wanted to start at the beginning and find out how Tom landed in property. He always knew he wanted to be a lawyer but wasn’t sure what his conjoint should be. In the end his uncle, a general practice lawyer - suggested that property lawyers had plenty of dynamic and interesting work in their sector, and the rest was history. Tom “couldn’t imagine doing anything else” and was glad about the choice he made.
Tom completed his BProp/LLB degrees at the University of Auckland in 2012. He recalled how, at the time, this combination of degrees was very niche; only 5 other students were studying property and law. Emily mentioned that this has changed significantly and has become a more popular option.
While at University, Tom completed summer clerkships at Chapman Tripp in their property law department and eventually joined them full-time after graduation.
Tom worked at Chapman Tripp from 2013 until 2016. In 2016, he was finally won over by the advances of a young boutique law firm, TBB, who had their eyes on him for a few years.
TBB was only four years old when he joined in 2016. While the history of Chapman Tripp motivated Tom to stay, the potential he saw in TBB was too great an opportunity to miss out on.
I wanted to know what pushed Tom to make the jump over. He explained how one of his biggest motivators was the opportunity to spend more time working directly with clients, which would in turn, help with growing his understanding of the property industry as a whole.
Tom emphasised the importance of listening to the “chatter” about the property market. “Clients expect you to be able to have conversations about the industry and provide insight on current market activity - listening to the chatter and offering those nuggets of insight helps grow the relationship and build loyalty.”
As we discussed what it was like entering the property industry, the idea of independence came up quite often. Was this a trait unique to property? Tom explained how the property industry is unique because it is so connected; it operates less like a corporate industry and more like a community. “"At some stage, almost everyone has worked together on something,” Tom joked.
Tom found that the culture at TBB differed significantly from the big law culture he had just shifted from. At the time, larger law firms were going through massive changes, leading to a significant loss of culture across the industry. Tom loved that TBB had such a vibrant culture where all staff members could feel safe and supported, likening the tight-knit culture to being like a family.
Throughout our discussion about TBB, Tom’s love for the culture stood out. His response was clear when asked about what he thinks is the most significant contributing factor to curating a fantastic culture: the people.
Having an amazing team is the number one contributor to TBB’s culture. He emphasised this importance during the recruitment process and the importance of ensuring people will fit the company’s culture.
“Having at least one passion in their life beyond work” is something that Tom mentioned was a significant consideration for them when recruiting new people for their team.
It helps showcase the applicant’s ability to contribute positively to something. Tom gave valuable advice on recruitment, saying, “Often, by the time you have the interview, they know you can do the job, and it is now about determining if you are the right fit.”
We wanted to understand more about what stage property transactions end up on a lawyer’s desk. Tom explained that it varies depending on the deal and the relationship between the client and the lawyer. Many people believe that commercial parties ‘do the deal’ and then hand over to lawyers to complete final settlement.
Tom explained that given TBB’s market knowledge, strategic expertise, and commercial focus they are often brought in to assist much earlier in the process, meaning they get to work side by side with clients through the full-deals lifecycle.
A recent example of this was TBB’s involvement in Commercial Bay - the opening of the rooftop
bar at One Queen Street last week marked the end of the project that TBB had been working on
with Precinct Properties since 2015.
Getting the opportunity to work closely with clients has benefits for the lawyers too. While working with Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei on their strategy for Te Tōangaroa (Quay Park), Tom learnt how their priorities differed from most investors and has seen the first had benefits of values-based decision making and investment in a long-term vision.
Before concluding our interview, we wanted to ask Tom what the best piece of advice he has been given or lesson he had learnt on his journey so far.
He said in his view the best investment you can make for a career in property is spending time building friendships with your BProp cohort. While this is something we hear a lot in property, he emphasised that if you can build a broad network during your time at university and keep in touch with those people through the early years of your career, a decade from now you will know key decision makers in all sectors of the property industry - and your name will be at the top of their list when they need a valuer, broker, property manager or whatever area you choose to go into.
This is something that AUPSS aims to create through our events and is one of the reasons TBB joined as a platinum sponsor for 2024.
We are so grateful to Tom for sharing his time with us and the experience that built his Blueprint. Thank you again to TBB for your continued support of AUPSS.
