Porzio nabs Wagner Davis attorneys

New Jersey–based law firm Porzio, Bromberg & Newman is diving into the New York City real estate game with the addition of attorneys from Wagner Davis, a Manhattan real estate law firm that will now close up shop after 28 years.

Steven Wagner, who founded Wagner Davis in 1984, is joining Porzio as a principal. He and five other attorneys from Wagner Davis joined Porzio’s New York City office at 156 West 56th Street last month, Wagner said, and will help establish Porzio’s first New York City real estate practice.

Porzio, which has some 90 lawyers in four offices, had been searching for experienced city real estate lawyers to complement its large New Jersey real estate group, managing principal Jeffrey Campbell told TRD.

“We have been looking for a good real estate group in the city for a number of years,” Campbell said, and Wagner Davis’s “diversified practice” seemed like a good fit.

Wagner said Porzio appealed to him, meanwhile, because of the breadth of its litigation practice.

The timing of the marriage also worked out “for real estate reasons,” Wagner said. When a subletter moved out of Wagner Davis’s 99 Madison Avenue office space, he decided to return the whole space to the landlord rather than spending money to get it ready for a new tenant. With only a year and a half left on the lease in a neighborhood with rising rents, he was able to return the space without any financial penalty, he said.

At Porzio, Wagner’s team will represent landlords and tenants in lease deals, buyers and sellers in sales, and co-ops and condo associations in land-use issues, Campbell said.