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Lorie Soares Lazarus and Peter Ballance, two real estate partners at dissolving law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, have landed at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton.
They join Sheppard Mullin’s real estate, energy, land use and environmental practice. Soares Lazarus is based out of Silicon Valley, while Ballance is in Century City, California.
The duo said they were the last two remaining real estate partners at Stroock, which confirmed in late October that it was dissolving and forming a wind-down committee. Since then, Stroock partners have scattered to several other law firms.
In interviews, Soares Lazarus and Ballance said they wanted to be very diligent about picking their next firm, as they felt “out of control” of their situation at their former firm.
“At our last firm, we didn’t have control of that process,” Soares Lazarus said about being forced to find a new job outside Stroock, but she added that picking Sheppard Mullin was “something we had control of in our practice.”
“Having been forced into a move, we wanted to be very thoughtful about the next place we went to,” she said. “We talked about what we really wanted in a firm: A thriving real estate practice in California was key. Not just thriving, but also growing. And our practice is nationwide, so we wanted better depth across the country, a little more than we had at Stroock. And a strong real estate finance practice. For those things, we looked at a number of different firms and Sheppard Mullin hit the mark on all of those for what we were looking for.”
That practice, they said, is poised for growth.
“Going to Sheppard, they have a strong California presence and a strong national presence,” Ballance said in an interview. “Lending has been slow for a year now, and there is a lot of money that needs to be placed. This feels like a good time to be getting going with the growth strategy and expanding this work.”
Soares Lazarus and Ballance both worked together at Katten Muchin Rosenman for several years together before making the move together to Stroock in 2020.
“Growing our real estate practice with practitioners with deep roots in this industry is a strategic priority for us,” Michael Leake, the real estate, energy and land use and environmental practice co-leader at Sheppard Mullin, said in a statement. “Lorie and Peter’s experience, coupled with our cross-practice collaborative model, will help our clients take advantage of opportunities and assess risks within the market and achieve their goals in deals, restructurings and investment outcomes.”
Soares Lazarus works with real estate investors of “all types,” the firm said, advising institutional lenders, borrowers, domestic and international banks, REITs and more. Ballance advises financial institutions, institutional lenders, developers and property owners, among others, in matters such as work out loans, purchase and sales and financing.
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