DLA Piper issued the following announcement on Jan. 23.
DLA Piper announced the launch of its Proptech practice, which will enable the firm to better advise clients working at the intersection of the Real Estate and Technology sectors and further the firm's mission as the leading global business law firm. This new practice will be led by Chicago-based partners Gregory Grossman (Corporate) and Heidi Azulay (Real Estate).
The Proptech practice will synergistically bolster DLA Piper's historic successes representing real estate, emerging growth and venture capital clients, and will be supported by a team of national and international resources, including the firm's global Real Estate practice led by co-chair John Sullivan and global Technology sector led by co-chair Victoria Lee.
DLA Piper is a two-time winner of the Chambers USA Award for Excellence, which recognized the firm as the top Real Estate practice in the US, and has been named Law Firm of the Year in the real estate category by Who's Who Legal for 14 consecutive years. The firm also ranked fourth in a list of most active venture capital firms in PitchBook's 2017 global league tables report, with 388 deals.
This new practice is a natural extension of work that DLA Piper is already deeply involved in, namely representing emerging proptech companies in various corporate, real estate and finance matters, advising companies at all stages of growth and expansion that are developing disruptive technologies for the real estate sector, representing proptech-oriented funds and working with its stable of institutional real estate clients to take advantage of investment and partnership opportunities across the proptech ecosystem.
"As new developments in technology continue to impact the real estate industry in complex ways, our clients have had to adapt their businesses and promote greater efficiency to remain at the cutting edge of the field," Azulay said.
"Companies are increasingly demanding more sophisticated counsel to provide multi-disciplined, practical and creative legal solutions as they continue to disrupt, harness and utilize technology to improve the way they operate their businesses and better serve their customers," Grossman said.
DLA Piper is proud to be at the forefront of providing legal counsel and business support to emerging proptech companies, and investors and developers of real estate technology, in areas critical to both their short-term and ongoing success.
The firm's broad range of legal services, coupled with its geographic reach, helps companies grow and adjust to new challenges throughout their business life cycle.
Original source can be found here.