Spate of summer recruitment shows that ambition is putting CC ahead of the pack

Excuse the pun, but real estate lawyers do seem to be hot property these days, with Clifford Chance (CC) and Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) both using the summer to reel in some much-touted partners.

This is particularly evident at CC where the London real estate team has recruited BLP partners Franc Pena and Catherine Cook this summer. The hires show how far the firm has come since Robert MacGregor's surprise departure to BLP in 2004 – a move that is widely conceded to have paid off handsomely for BLP.

Perhaps surprisingly, opinion is more divided regarding the recent recruitment of Herbert Smith rainmaker Chris de Pury, despite the high regard he has earned within property circles. This is largely due to the predictions that BLP is risking the morale of existing partners by continuing to offer big money to star laterals.

But what the spate of tit-for-tat recruitment at BLP and CC does illustrate is the extent to which these two firms are setting the legal real estate agenda. CC in particular is regarded to be on spectacular form, with one partner saying that the City giant's property team "probably has greater depth than any firm in that space".

The firm already has a significantly larger team than most of its rivals with some 23 partners in London alone – compare this to 13 at Ashurst and 15 at Linklaters – leaving BLP as one of the few City players with a bigger practice.

CC has also had an excellent run of mandates over the last 12 months, landing roles on high-profile transactions including the £1.09bn sale and leaseback of HSBC's Canary Wharf HQ and the £650m disposal of CityPoint, as well as Transport for London's pre-let in the Shard skyscraper. In addition, it has good links with Middle Eastern investment groups, which, as any real estate lawyer will tell you, are very handy right now.

The "incredibly hard-working" Pena, who has himself advised CC in the past, is viewed as an especially astute hire, giving CC access to an outsourcing business through his links with Land Securities Trillium.

Cook, a younger partner who focuses on real estate finance and corporate real estate deals, is not so well-known but she impressed CC long before she joined BLP, when she worked opposite CC at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. CC also recently secured the services of another young property partner with the hire of Fiona Kelly from Canadian firm Davies Ward Phillips & Vineberg, after months of talks.

None of this is accidental, as has already been noted by rivals not expecting to see a magic circle firm recruiting heavily in property at this stage of the cycle. CC decided last year to significantly expand its real estate team on a practice-wide level after a strategy review. That has been crucial; if there has been a key to CC's success in property over the last decade it has been clear commitment and ambition (and the fact that the real estate team has been among the firm's most profitable teams for years).

That expansion means the firm is looking to have 30 partners in London and is also aiming for substantial international growth. As CC real estate head Cliff McAuley comments: "We are looking at the practice over a 10-year time horizon in terms of where we want to take it and numbers. If you get it right, you can have a very profitable business in commercial real estate in the City – I am surprised if people do not see that."

Quite.