Elliott Hodgkin
25 April 2025
Latin Lawyer has found that real estate was the most popular practice area for partner hires in the first quarter of this year, which experts say is linked to a quickly rising demand for specialised advice across the region.
Our data shows nine real estate hires across five jurisdictions for the first three months of the year.
Notable examples in the previous quarter include Highly Recommended Peruvian outfit CMS Grau, which recruited a team of real estate lawyers that included two partners from local firm Rubio Leguía Normand. Brazilian Highly Recommended firm Azevedo Sette Advogados bolstered its offering by hiring two partners to the practice, including a real estate litigation partner, from local firms Chodraui e Tambuque Advogados and Lopes Domingues Advogados.
Over in Mexico, Elite firm Pérez-Llorca appointed two partners from Highly Recommended outfit SMPS Legal to its real estate group.
The latest hires demonstrate a common thread of strategic talent acquisition of real estate partners that bring diverse expertise to complement those firms multidisciplinary offerings.
For example, CMS Graus hires brought expertise not only in land regularisation and project development but administrative law and arbitration. While Azevedo Settes appointments also bolstered the firms capacity to advise on complex real estate disputes, while the arrival of an ECIJA partner at Zurcher Odio reinforced the outfit’s tourism law offering.
An intersection of disciplines
The recent uptick in real estate hires has demonstrated an appetite in the Latin American legal market for talent that can elevate several areas of a firm.
Partner Franco Soria, who was recently hired to CMS Grau’s partnership underlines that: “Real estate law is a cross-sectoral discipline that receives mandates from nearly all areas of the economy, which contributes to a growing need for specialised expertise,” says Soria.
In Peru, for example, the partner explains that real estate law has several complexities that calls on other areas of practice – such as the fact that registering a property with a public authority does not guarantee ownership rights.
“This, coupled with the fact that [Peru’s] real estate market is largely informal, makes these transactions complex,” says Soria. As a result, real estate work can draw on multiple areas across the firm.
Soria explains that the multi-faceted nature of real estate work means that firms must also hire and train partners who can deftly handle the complexities that will likely arise.
“It is imperative to allocate resources to training initiatives while also gaining a comprehensive understanding of the sectors challenges and issues,” he says.
Ricardo Stuber, a partner in the real estate practice of Brazilian firm PMK Advogados, agrees that there is a demand in the legal market for “professionals with strong technical training and hands-on experience in the real estate sector, particularly in structured transactions involving capital markets.” As a result, making strategic hires to this practice can be a real coup, which could lead firms to actively scout out top talent for their real estate offerings.
As real estate and tourism work is increasingly intertwined across different types of transactions, like capital markets and urban transformation projects, means this demand is likely to continue.
Brazil, for example, is seeing a rise in the complexity of regulations and new asset classes like data centres and renewable energy projects in the real estate area driving up this trend – further complicated by tax reforms, and the growth of construction industry and investment funds.
As a result, there can be no shortcuts in building the technical skills needed to meet this level of complex work.
“Practical knowledge of real estate deal structuring, risk analysis and creative legal solutions is something that takes time and qualified exposure to build,” he says
Sérgio Mirisola Soda, who joined Azevedo Sette as co-head of its disputes group in January adds that Brazil’s “significant” housing deficit is also providing plenty of work for firms.
“This movement has also been boosted by improvements in interest rates years ago, which have reduced the cost of credit and facilitated access to real estate financing, and by public incentive programmes such as Minha Casa, Minha Vida (My House, My Life), targeted at social housing,” he explains.
Building the next generation of real estate lawyers
As the practice of real estate evolves in complexity across Latin America, it is important for the new generation of lawyers to begin getting accustomed to such complexities in order to get ahead of the curve.
María Teresa Paillés, one of two real estate partners hired by Elite firm Perez-Llorca (Mexico), remarks that new trends such as nearshoring in Mexico is fuelling a demand for a fresh asset class, including things such as industrial parks, and logistics infrastructure. Investment in both luxury and mid-range hospitality is swiftly on the rise, making the real estate outlook very promising – particularly for less exploited areas in Yucatán and Quintana Roo.
However, finding talent to work on this range of mandates remains a challenge among traditional real estate lawyers who may apply themselves to a wide range of work that the practice typically calls on, but are less versed on more specialist matters. As a result, the newer generation will need to be equipped to become experts in specific areas of the discipline.
María Esther Rey, who also joined Pérez-Llorca’s real estate partnership in 2025, describes how a lot of real estate lawyers are “all-rounders,” who may sometimes lack the necessary specialisation to take on more complex mandates.
This skill gap needs to be addressed in order to avoid letting clients down on important projects, Rey explains. “This represents a risk for clients, as critical details may be overlooked,” she says.
Paillés concludes that the modern real estate lawyer must also go beyond mastering the technical aspects of a deal and strive to develop “negotiation skills, knowledge of the specific sector . . . and an understanding of the technical language used by clients.”
https://latinlawyer.com/article/why-real-estate-partners-are-becoming-hot-property-in-latam