BLP snaps up de Pury from Herbert Smith

Berwin Leighton Paisner is to boost its real estate team with the hire of highly-rated property partner Chris de Pury from Herbert Smith. De Pury, who is based in Herbert Smith's City headquarters, is currently thought to be in negotiations with BLP with a view to joining the top 20 firm.

April 02, 2007 at 06:39 AM

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Berwin Leighton Paisner is to boost its real estate team with the hire of highly-rated property partner Chris de Pury from Herbert Smith.

De Pury, who is based in Herbert Smith's City headquarters, is currently thought to be in negotiations with BLP with a view to joining the top 20 firm.

The hire comes two years after BLP grabbed headlines hired high-profile Clifford Chance (CC) real estate partner Robert MacGregor to head up the department.

Since then the team has seen a number of partner additions, including the appointments of former CC senior associates Chris Wight in 2005 and Robert Bindless a year later, as well as Linklaters senior associate Kirsty Corkum earlier this year.

At Herbert Smith de Pury was part of the team that won Legal Week's 2006 Property Team of the Year award, having been cited by clients and rivals as "the team's outstanding name".

Recent instructions for de Pury include advising a real estate fund run by private equity group Carlyle on its £150m acquisition of Colmore Plaza in Birmingham – one of the largest private equity-led property acquisitions outside London to date.