search

The Real Deal Logo

Trending

Lawmakers reach sweeping housing deal with “good cause eviction,” new 421aLawmakers reach sweeping housing deal with “good cause eviction,” new 421aCity Council approves zoning change to greenlight casinosCity Council approves zoning change to greenlight casinosHackensack apartment project grows to 350 units Hackensack apartment project grows to 350 units Evictions surge at Hialeah’s luxury apartment projects Shoma Village, Pura Vida and ManorEvictions surge at Hialeah’s luxury apartment projects Shoma Village, Pura Vida and Manor
Popular
New York

David Boies, lawyer to titans and tyrants, sells Manhattan apartment

The attorney bought the Sherry-Netherland unit a decade ago

David Boies and 781 Fifth Avenue (Credit: Wikipedia)
David Boies and 781 Fifth Avenue (Credit: Wikipedia)

Controversial super-lawyer David Boies has sold his 35th-floor apartment at the Sherry-Netherland a decade after moving in.

The two-bedroom apartment at 781 Fifth Avenue went for for $13.6 million to an anonymous buyer listed as “SNP 2, LLC”, according to records filed with city Thursday.

Boies originally bought the unit at the Upper East Side building for $7.75 million in 2009. It has hand painted stenciled floors, a full concierge service provided by the hotel and views over Central Park.

The attorney is known for his work on famous cases like 2000’s Bush v. Gore, and Hollingsworth v. Perry, which legalized same-sex marriage in the state of California. But last year Boies suffered what the New York Times described as “an unprecedented public relations disaster.”

Sign Up for the undefined Newsletter

His old client Harvey Weinstein was accused of sexual assault by multiple women, and it was reported that Boies had engaged the private intelligence firm Black Cube to spy on Weinstein’s victims.

Another client, the health technology company Theranos, was revealed as a fraud. Boies drew criticism for becoming a director of the company while simultaneously providing legal representation.

In a strange twist, Boies’s law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, is currently being sued by exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui, one of Boies’s neighbors at the Sherry-Netherland. Wengui, who lives in a $67 million apartment in the building, was formerly a client of the law firm. In November 2018, Boies and his colleagues went to court to recover $640,000 in unpaid legal fees from Wengui. In response, Wengui filed a $3 million suit against the law firm alleging malpractice.