Looking out the window of Mayer Brown's office in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday, real estate partner M. Scott Cooper said he'd been involved in the financing of “well over half” of the buildings within view.

That expertise made him and his longtime colleague Daniel Liffmann a catch for Mayer Brown, which hired them away this week from Sidley Austin. Philip Recht, partner-in-charge of Mayer Brown's Los Angeles office and a leader of the firm's California government relations and public law practice, said the new hires bring Mayer Brown's local real estate presence back to about a dozen lawyers.

Like many large firms, Mayer Brown shrunk its real estate capacity during the economic recession that began a decade ago. But Recht said that Cooper and Liffmann's focus on financing makes them a valuable addition to the land use and transactional real estate teams the firm already has in Los Angeles, where Sidley supplemented its downtown office with a presence in Century City two years ago after adding Simpson Thacher & Bartlett's local managing partner Daniel Clivner.