Scott Levine (left) and Christine O'Connell of King & Spalding in New York. (Courtesy photos)

King & Spalding has expanded its real estate finance practice in New York by recruiting partners Scott Levine and Christine O'Connell from Arnold & Porter.

Levine and O'Connell represent institutional lenders, including private equity funds, hedge funds and investment banks, in large real estate financing transactions.

Their moves follow the addition to King & Spalding's New York office last June of an eight-lawyer real estate finance team from Riemer & Braunstein, with partners Erik Andersen, Elizabeth Gable and Jared Zaben.

King & Spalding, based in Atlanta, has made a strong push to expand its corporate and finance capabilities in New York over the past several years, landing dealmaker Jim Woolery to head its M&A and corporate governance practices in 2017, and Jonathan Melmed last year as part of a seven-lawyer team of private equity lawyers to co-chair its global private equity practice.

“Our primary focus of growth is in New York and London,” said Todd Holleman, the New York-based leader of King & Spalding's corporate, finance and investment practice. “We are using New York to help drive the opportunities and work throughout the platform. We knew Scott and Christine through Erik and Elizabeth, so they are a natural extension to us.” 

With Levine and O'Connell, Holleman said, the firm has 17 real estate finance lawyers in New York who are part of a real estate group with 90 professionals worldwide. 

King & Spalding's lawyer head count in New York has grown to about 200 lawyers—up from 170 last August. With about 1,100 lawyers globally, the firm reported a 10.8% revenue increase last year, to $1.26 billion.

Calling Levine and O'Connell “plugged in and energetic,” Holleman said their interest in working with the other lawyers in the real estate finance and related practices to expand client relationships—both theirs and those of the firm—is what King & Spalding looks for in lateral partners.

The firm's culture emphasizes and rewards “working in groups, being collaborative and sharing credit,” he said. “That resonates with a lot of our laterals, and part of our growth plan in New York is to use that distinction to attract talent.”

O'Connell said King & Spalding's addition of the real estate finance team from Riemer & Braunstein was the impetus for her and Levine's own move to the firm, as the two have a good relationship with the team's leaders, Andersen and Gable. 

“Scott and I have worked with them or across from them on deals for many years,” O'Connell said. “We saw what they were doing here, and it was very exciting to us. We are looking at the next phase of our career, and it's a chance to really have an involvement in building something.”

“It's a very small industry—and lots of folks know us and Erik and Elizabeth,” she added, so the combination is a chance to develop more business. 

Levine and O'Connell have practiced together since starting their legal careers at New York-based Kaye Scholer 12 years ago. That firm merged with Washington-based Arnold & Porter in 2016 to form Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer. 

“We started the same day in the same group, and we were always one office apart from each other,” Levine said. While the two don't necessarily work on the same matters, he said, their careers have had the same trajectory. 

With Andersen and Gable's team, King & Spalding now has a “well-developed group” in New York that is still in growth mode, Levine said. “They've got a good engine going on, and, with King & Spalding's broad platform, we can bring in the tax, ERISA and environmental people for deals,” he said, which is useful for their private equity lender clients.

“Scott and Christine are excellent additions to the practice and a fantastic follow-on to the eight-lawyer team we hired last year,” said the firm's New York managing partner, Edward Kehoe, in a statement. “We are investing heavily across our transactional practices in New York, and real estate is one of the areas in which we continue to grow profitably.”