Eversheds Sutherland added three real estate lawyers to its Chicago office on Monday, as the office's partner-in-charge, Marc Benjamin, makes good on his vow when he opened the office last year to "get the band back together."

Benjamin recruited partner Ruth Schoenmeyer and counsel Stephanie Kim from White & Case along with Kathleen Dempsey Boyle as counsel from Meltzer, Purtill & Stelle, a Chicago business law boutique. Benjamin, a real estate practitioner himself, previously worked with all three lawyers at another firm, Pircher Nichols & Meeks.

The new hires give Eversheds six lawyers on its Chicago real estate team, making up half of the office's 12 lawyers. While the real estate industry has slowed globally because of pandemic-related shutdowns, Benjamin said adding the three real estate lawyers was a good opportunity.

"We're fortunate that Ruth and her team are busy right now," he said, explaining that Schoenmeyer, who has a mostly leasing practice representing both landlords and tenants, shares a client with Eversheds that has committed to a certain amount of work for the rest of the year. Benjamin declined to name the client.

"Ruth has great practice experience and skills, and she is also busy at a challenging time in this practice area," Benjamin said, noting that real estate law, including leasing, is a key practice firmwide.

"Commercial leasing has definitely been impacted by COVID-19, but it's an important real estate practice area for the firm, and we are confident that it will come back over time," he said.

Eversheds has about 400 lawyers globally dedicated to real estate, including a large number focused on leasing law, Benjamin added.

The six other Eversheds lawyers in Chicago handle M&A deals and private equity, tax law and commercial litigation, Benjamin said, adding that one of the litigators, Tim McCaffrey, spends more than half his time on real estate-related litigation.

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Attorney connections

Benjamin joined Eversheds to launch its Chicago office in May 2019 from White & Case after an earlier 24 years at Pircher. Another real estate partner, Susan Kai, joined him then from Kirkland & Ellis, after working with him earlier at Pircher.

Kai had also worked with Schoenmeyer, Kim and Boyle at Pircher.

Joining Shoenmeyer and Kim from White & Case are paralegal Jean Murray and legal secretary Kim Foster, who'd also earlier worked at Pircher. White & Case in 2018 acquired Pircher's 13-lawyer Chicago office.

"They are former colleagues, friends and all-around great humans," Benjamin said.

Eversheds' Chicago office, located at 900 N. Michigan Ave., was the first new U.S. office for Eversheds after the January 2017 trans-Atlantic combination between the U.K.'s Eversheds and Atlanta-based Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. The firm opened an additional U.S. office last July in San Diego focused on intellectual property law.

Eversheds embarked on phase one of its reopening in Chicago on Monday, allowing its lawyers and staff to return to the office on a strictly voluntary basis, but so far, Benjamin said, no one is actually back in the office. Benjamin added that he made it clear at the Chicago office's virtual happy hour last Friday "that I don't want people to feel pressure to go in."

The firm started phase one of U.S. office reopenings in Atlanta two weeks ago.

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