An international standard of service

Thank you very much for the interview. According to some reports, the Turks and Caicos Islands has a prosperous economy with a favorable asset position, well-developed tourism sector, and expanding GDP [gross domestic product]. This positive outlook is based on the expectation of successful implementation of recent measures designed to modernize the public sector and strengthen governance. These, coupled with a projected economic growth averaging 3 percent annually, will contribute to a reduction in the country’s debt over the next few years. What are your impressions of the current state of the economy and how optimistic are you about the future of the Turks and Caicos?

The present state of the economy is pretty good. We are definitely trending in the right directions, as the numbers indicate. We are attracting a lot of additional visitors to the island. Being primarily tourism based, Turks and Caicos has really positioned itself as a high-end destination, one of choice for the elite. It is not cheap to reach but no one regrets coming. The value for money is there and we get repeat visitors. In terms of how optimistic I am for the future, I am very optimistic. In the legal and real-estate professions, normally we get a sense of where the economy is going more quickly than most. Once a person starts buying property, you start to see an increase in activity, which as lawyers, we started to see last year. This year has gotten busy again in terms of people wanting to buy property or an existing home, or build a development. There is a lot of construction beginning again after years of inactivity. The cranes are moving and the crews are coming in. That means a lot to these islands and indicates that the future is bright. Tourism is sound, but what we need are additional rooms to accommodate more visitors. We have completed expansions recently, renovations to the airport—the last few years have been about improving on infrastructure. Now we are beginning to reap the benefits of putting those measures in place, as well as getting more rooms and more people interested in the destination. The future looks bright for the Turks and Caicos Islands.

There are about forty firms on the island right now. We still have a relatively small bar compared to our neighbors in the Caribbean, but we have a sound English legal system here. The rule of law is respected. We have three full-time judges currently, so the court system is active. Cases move through the system quite quickly. You always want to have a good judiciary and legal system in any country where a person wants to do business. As we know, things can go badly, and your recourse is to go the courts. The judiciary helps maintain investor confidence in these islands. We have a strong system where cases do not get gridlocked for years. You can move cases through courts very quickly. We have a court of appeal that sits an average of three times a year. We also have an ultimate appeal to the Privy Council in the UK. The Westminster legal system is very respected. It is proven, trusted, and old.

So you are satisfied with the legal system here?

Yes. We recently modernized the courtrooms. There is a lot of training for the judiciary and the attorneys. The local bar has a lot of training sessions and conferences that attorneys attend to sharpen their skills. When needed, there is a good system within the legal profession’s ordinance in terms of bringing in specialist attorneys from the UK or elsewhere to be called on a limited basis. People know they have access to competent attorneys and judges here if they want to do business. That does well for investor confidence and helps the system work.

You cofounded your law firm in 2008 with Peter Karam. How is your firm positioned compared to its counterparts, and what is the profile of your clients? Are they international or local?

Karam and I founded the company in 2008. This year, we opened an office in the Bahamas. Alecia Bowe is the managing partner of our offices in the Bahamas.
We have a good mix of both local and international clients. We are split into litigation as well as development and real estate. Presently, we are busy in terms of investors.

In terms of our counterparts, we have thrived since we started and risen pretty quickly to catch up with and surpass most if not all of our competition. That has been through hard work, marketing, and trying to do a little bit more than the other guys to stay up to date with current trends, the internet, marketing, client care, etc. We continue to expand. We went from two attorneys in 2008 to around ten now. These are small numbers for a big city, but for here it is a large company. We are the first to expand overseas, which is groundbreaking and is the beginning of where we want to go. We set a goal for ourselves when we rose to the fifth-ranked law firm in three years and number one in seven years. I think we are there.

As a law firm, one of your main roles is to advise new clients, both national and international, about the legislation and jurisdiction of the island and all of the formalities they will have to follow in order to comply with the country’s law. In many cases, you are their only link and they totally rely on you. Could you describe what your clients are looking for, what their main concerns are, what types of challenges do they face, and what types of incentives do they have when they come here?

Internationally, the bulk of the clients who come here want to purchase real estate. There are visitors who come to the island, fall in love with it, and want to buy a property. Either they buy a residential home or look for investment opportunities to build a resort, hotel, or casino. Anyone stepping off a plane sees the potential of the Turks and Caicos. It is not developed, but it is developing. People want to be a part of that and we see them coming in to invest and they tell a friend. Word of mouth has been the best marketing tool for the islands. We have many wealthy and influential clients, and when they go home and brag about the new condo they have here their friends want one too. Incentive-wise, it is very easy to buy here. International clients can own real estate and there are not many taxes. There are many up-front costs, but apart from that, there is no income tax on the properties so you can take your time to build. There are opportunities to invest—you can buy a unit and live in it for part of the year and then rent it out. In addition to being a fantastic place to get away to, it is very easy to get to, which is attractive to international clients. It is also one of the Caribbean islands that uses exclusively U.S. dollars, so it eliminates the hassle of money exchange and pay fees. In terms of red tape, that is one of the main things we find that people like. Buying real estate is simple. There is a registered land system and the crown guarantees title, so you can sign a contract, see something you like and close within thirty days—it is very quick. There are some large projects that take longer because they have to go through the government regulatory process. They may become involved if you are building a large development for which you need hundreds of workers. Looking for certain concessions from the government, you may need to do environmental-impact assessments. The environment is one of the main things we sell, so we are always trying to preserve that. It is an aesthetically pleasing island and we want to make sure that nothing hurts the marine environment in the process. Those things can take a little longer. There is not a lot of red tape, there are just things that need to be done. Other incentives for persons on the high end doing these types of developments is that it is easy to get such things as permanent residency here, which is a significant incentive for those people who want to come in free of immigration control and live here or spend most of their time here. There are those types of concessions and benefits for investing here. The smaller the project, the easier it is. It gets a little more complicated the bigger it is with immigration controls for employees, for example. Those have to go to boards and you need certain approvals for building. Having said that, the professionals on the island are equipped to navigate those waters quite smoothly. It is a small island population where you are a phone call away from getting to the person that you need to speak with directly or from seeing a particular agent or minister. It is very accommodating in that regard. That assists in moving the process through much more quickly and painlessly. We want to keep people happy. We want it to be easy to initiate developments. What we see is people building their second and third developments on the island, which is a great thing.

You have a very diverse background in law. You were admitted to three bars, in England and Wales, the Bahamas, and the Turks and Caicos. Before you founded your company, you had experience working for law firms and other private companies. You were also the president of the Turks and Caicos Island Bar Association for three consecutive terms. Why did you establish Karam & Missick?

We saw opportunity. We started this firm at the worst time but it turned out to be the best time, during the recession. For luck or some other reason, it worked. We survived that and quickly gained some attention and the confidence of many local businesses and international ones as well. Finding a partner is the hardest part. You have to find someone with whom you can spend all of these hours and have many things in common, and want to work. Fortunately, our differences worked. I am more litigation and he is more investment, he is more business and I am more confrontational. The business is around mediation skills, so marrying those skills together turned out to produce something good. We went into it for the opportunity and with a vision and challenge. We defined what we wanted to do and wanted to do it better than anyone else. The Turks and Caicos has gone through a big boom period, so money was coming quickly and we felt that some of our counterparts were becoming a bit complacent, and we knew that coming in we had to work for everything we got. There was nothing else left to give out; we had to go and get our clients. We had to seek them out overseas, sell a product, and provide a service. That is what we did, adding pieces along the way, looking at the areas we wanted to grow, bringing in the right personnel to help us achieve that growth, etc. Our office has grown significantly from where we started. It was always fun, starting from scratch. I came from the big law firms and I had the opportunity to work at other large firms to run offices. The idea of starting something from scratch seemed like fun. You can put your own stamp on it with your own vision and ideals, everything that goes into developing what you want, kind of like the difference between buying and building. We continue to have fun while we grow. Now that we are in this market, we are known. We have the big clients and we are solidified here and are looking to conquer new territories. We always wanted to go overseas and the Bahamas was a natural progression. Me being called to the Bar in the Bahamas made it possible to practice there, but we are also looking at opening offices of Karam & Missick in Dubai and Brazil, not just affiliations. That is what excites us coming to work in the morning. It is easy to get bored on a small island, so you challenge yourself by moving the bar just a little higher.