Mark Eagan, the head of Hogan Lovells' real estate practice in the Americas, has taken a partner role at real estate-focused Goulston & Storrs in New York.

Eagan has three decades of experience working on deals for investment banks, pension funds, real estate investment trusts and other investors, including Ivanhoé Cambridge, the real estate arm of Quebec's government pension fund. He said he was "pretty sure" he'd continue to work with Ivanhoé.

"I was looking to make a move [and] interviewed with Goulston & Storrs and a number of other firms," said Eagan, adding the Boston-founded firm was "the clear winner."

The move comes after Eagan spent about four years at Hogan Lovells, where he was a partner. According to his former firm profile, his deals have included work for cement-maker McInnis on its long-term ground lease for a facility in the Bronx, for a REIT that renegotiated a ground lease covering more than 40 properties and for Madison Marquette on the recapitalization of a real estate fund that held assets including The Wharf in Washington, D.C.

Before his time at Hogan Lovells, he practiced at Paul Hastings, where he founded that firm's European real estate practice and spent 12 years in London. While at Paul Hastings, he advised on Ivanhoe's $5.3 billion acquisition, with Blackstone, of the Stuyvesant Town residential development on Manhattan's east side.

Eagan said he does deals across the U.S. and occasionally outside of it, mostly with inbound foreign investors. While it's true that investment from China has slowed in recent years, he said, "there's so much global capital looking for transactions that [the practice as a whole] hasn't slowed down."

Eagan said he had no complaints about Hogan Lovells, and no one is moving with him, but he liked what he saw at Goulston. The firm, which lists about 200 lawyers on its website, is ranked No. 157 in the Am Law 200. Hogan Lovells, which has more than 2,000 lawyers, is ranked No. 7.

"I was certainly looking for a smaller place, and Goulston certainly fits that bill," he said. "It seems tighter, more collegial."

His practice has lately been affected by last year's legislation in New York that gave tenants more protections and which make it harder for landlords to raise rents in certain contexts. "We have lots of clients who have gone long on New York multifamily investments, so [for] some of the strategies that were probably employed, the underwriting is all up in the air now," he said. "A lot of clients [are] looking for advice."

A Hogan Lovells spokeswoman didn't respond to a comment request on his departure.