WASHINGTON, DC—Full-service brokerages, to state the obvious,represent landlords and tenants along with offering a wide array ofother services. It is almost inevitable -- especially now asconsolidation continues to narrow this space -- that a tenantrepresented by a full service brokerage firm will be shown abuilding whose landlord is also a client of the firm. It is alsoalmost inevitable that the tenant will assume that the brokeragecompany has controls and policies in place to manage that conflictof interest.

And why not? That has been the governing narrative in theindustry—interrupted only by tenant-only firms that are quick totell clients that their interests would be best represented by acompany that won't be tempted to favor their more lucrativelandlord clients.

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