Two land-use lawyers and a consultant who worked at the boutique Slater & Beckerman have moved to Herrick Feinstein, signaling the firm's continuing efforts to grow its already well-known real estate practice.

Ray Levin, Ellen Hay and Robert Huberman in New York have joined Herrick as special counsel, land use consultant and associate, respectively. Mitchell Korbey, chair of Herrick's land use and zoning group, which previously had four people, said there was a number of matters that the new team members could collaborate on, adding his group's work “does not lend itself to individual fiefdoms.”

“We have a lot of work that I think they will complement and help us with,” he said. “But they also have their own business and their own work and new things to bring to us. … That existing work complements what we already have.”

According to online profiles, Levin and Hay had been at Slater & Beckerman since 2013, and Huberman started at the firm in 2015. Their former firm now lists four people on its website. Stuart Beckerman and Carole Slater, principal and of counsel, respectively, at the firm, didn't respond to a request for comment.

Clients of Herrick's land-use and zoning group include developers and, increasingly, banks that lend them money, Korbey said. Some of them need help dealing with city agencies, like the Landmarks Preservation Commission, whose purview encompasses some 29% of the buildings in Manhattan, while others want to better understand and plan for major initiatives like the rezoning of the historically industrial area around Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal, he said.

Korbey, who was a commissioner for the New York City Board of Standards and Appeals and was the director of the Brooklyn office at the Department of City Planning, said he knew Levin since his early days as an urban planner. He said the addition of the three wasn't so much about acquiring particular skill sets or areas of expertise so much as adding to the practice as a whole, escalating it to “Herrick to the tenth power.”