Pinsents pumps up property muscle with DLA’s Taylor
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DLA Piper’s former joint global head of real estate David Taylor is leaving the firm to join Pinsent Masons as a senior consultant.
David Taylor
Taylor, whose clients include British Land, Burberry and the Petchey Group of Companies, will be tasked with helping Pinsents raise its profile in the international real estate market.
The UK firm has recently been on a hiring spree with the explicit goal of positioning its real estate group among the leaders in the market.
Recent hires include Mike Edge, the head of property from collapsed firm Halliwells, and fellow Halliwells partner Rachel Pitman in August 2010; Iain Gilbey, head of planning at Shoosmiths, in January 2011; and Jim Purves, property head at Brabners, who is due to join in May.
Taylor began his career at Berwin Leighton Paisner, where he was head of property before leaving in 2000 to join Herbert Smith as a senior consultant.
Four years later he joined DLA Piper, stepping down as joint head of real estate in December 2008 when he returned to full-time
fee-earning.
“Pinsents has one of the world’s leading construction practices as well as strong groups in planning, environment, infrastructure and energy,” said Taylor. “The aim is for us to develop the real estate practice significantly by linking with these areas.”
Pinsents property head Adrian Barlow said: “David’s one of the most high-profile figures in the legal property sector. His appointment underlines our ambition to continue developing the team into one of the best in the market.”
Readers' comments (9)
Anonymous | 18-Apr-2011 8:51 am
Sounds like a good move for Taylor - Pinsents is a great firm. What is going on at DLA?
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DeLaAa | 18-Apr-2011 11:48 am
I see the DLA bashers are out - one consultant leaves to join another firm as a consultant. Maybe come results day it will be interesting to see who out of the DLA and Pinsent Masons partners are better paid profits wise. Time will tell.
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Anonymous | 18-Apr-2011 3:26 pm
Come any day of the year, it will be interesting to see which firm treats is associates and supports staff better. One doesn't need to be a DLA basher to know how utterly dismal the firm's form is there. But yes, partner profts is obviously all that matters.
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Gareth James | 18-Apr-2011 8:03 pm
what is going at DLA - they have lost their head of private equity, their head of Litigation and Regulatory and now their only well known and highly regarded property partner - all in the space of two weeks. Is there a queue to get out the door with all their clients? Perhaps that is why they introduced the gardening leave
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Anonymous | 19-Apr-2011 3:22 pm
Everyone who has ever worked at DLA and then left (which iseems to be about half the lawyers at UK major firms) knows the score: the equity boys milk it and the rest get paid just about enough to keep them hanging on, until they realise what a old boys trough it really is. They then leave.
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Anonymous | 19-Apr-2011 3:32 pm
Why does anyone care whether a "senior consultant" leaves DLA? How is that earth shattering news? The article notes Taylor was also a "senior consultant" at Herbert Smith since 2000 and now at Pinsents? Was he never good enough to be a partner at these firms and if not, why trumpet the move?
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Anonymous | 19-Apr-2011 4:44 pm
David has never been a partner anywhere - he is old school - never qualified!!!
Didnt stop him getting to be head of property at BLP!
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Anonymous | 19-Apr-2011 7:32 pm
David is not a qualified lawyer and thus has been an equity partner equivalent at HS and DLA - for heaven's sake he was the global head of real estate at DLA until 2009!
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Anonymous | 20-Apr-2011 9:42 am
At the above comment:
Do you know the difference between Senior Consultant and Senior Associate?
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