Greenberg Traurig has hired a seven-strong group of real estate lawyers, including one partner and two senior associates from Dentons to replenish its real estate offering in Warsaw after it lost 10 lawyers to CMS in November. 

Maciej Jodkowski, who joins as a partner, moves to Greenberg from Dentons alongside his team of senior associates, Karol Lewandowski and Karolina Tulwin, as well as paralegal Alicja Kwiatkowska. They will join the team led by Greenberg’s head of real estate and managing partner in Warsaw, Jolanta Nowakowska-Zimoch. 

A transactional lawyer by trade, Jodkowski spent just over a decade at Dentons, where he became a partner in January. He specialises in advising Polish and foreign investors on projects across the office, logistics and commercial sectors. Jodkowski began his legal career at Linklaters as a trainee in 2004 and later re-joined the Magic Circle firm's Polish team as an associate in 2005, according to his Linkedin profile. 

The firm has also added senior associate Izabela Żmijewska and associates Jędrzej Antoszewski and Tomasz Drzewiecki to its real estate ranks. Żmijewska joins from Kochański & Partners, while Antoszewski joins from Domanski Zakrzewski Palinka. Drzewiecki, meanwhile, joins the firm after three years as an equity analyst at Bloomberg. 

Some 40 of Greenberg’s 100 Warsaw-based lawyers belong to its real estate group, which covers a broad spectrum of real estate matters with experience in Poland and within Central Europe. 

Welcoming the new arrivals, Warsaw office senior partner Lejb Fogelman said: “This strong lateral move is in line with our strategy and exemplifies that our commitment to excellence is based on merit and facts, not promises and press releases.”

“This team has already hit the ground running, providing the highest level of client service that Greenberg Traurig is recognized for in the market,” he added. 

The firm’s executive chairman, Richard Rosenbaum, said the hires underlined the firm’s commitment to its European presence and its ongoing growth strategy in the region. 

“We stand as a culture and business model in sharp contrast to entities which call themselves 'firms,' but are in fact vereins or even loosely connected marketing organizations,” he commented, adding that the firm is expecting to forge ahead with its European push with more new arrivals in Amsterdam and Milan in the near future. 

“This does not happen by accident. Our growth strategy always focuses on quality, culture, and diversity over numbers, with women playing key roles and comprising 40% of our London shareholders,” he added. 

Greenberg nabbed a six-partner disputes team from Mishcon de Reya in October, which brought the number of lawyers the firm added in London during the Covid-19 pandemic to around 50 and its litigation practice to almost one-third of the office.