After graduating from University College Dublin with a first class honours degree in law, Blake O’Donnell trained and qualified at A&L Goodbody, one of Ireland’s top firms.

Since then, including working at another highly rated law firm in Ireland and at his own law firm before joining Spencer West, he has accumulated over 15 years’ experience working on real estate transactions, financings and restructurings with a cumulative value of over £1 billion in a number of jurisdictions, particularly the UK, USA, France, Sweden and Ireland. He is a specialist in real estate financings, restructurings and disposals particularly in contentious scenarios. He has also run litigation cases in the Superior Courts of England, the British Virgin Islands, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Ireland.

He understands real estate from a commercial as well as legal perspective. He has arranged financings, overseen construction, conducted sales processes and negotiated restructurings. He advises clients with complex property arrangements in need of strategic legal advice from someone who has actually done large real estate transactions and dealt with issues as a principal and not just as a lawyer. His clients include large real estate developers and high net worth individuals.