Real-Estate Law Firms Roll With the Market

ractice, was dropping his daughter off at Columbia University this year when he noticed a long line of cars each with an Amazon Prime decal on its side.

At the time he was trying to expand Weil Gotshal’s practice representing the warehouse owners who lease space to Internet retail giants. Eyeing the cars, he figured a little bit of information about Amazon Prime’s business would be helpful. “I went to the driver of one of the cars and said what’s going on here?” Mr. Rosen recalled.

Mr. Rosen slipped him a bit of money as an incentive. “Twenty dollars later he said ‘sure, I’ll tell you.’”

As real-estate owners adapt to new technologies, the law firms that represent them are changing to keep up with existing clients and add new ones. In Weil Gotshal’s case, the intel Mr. Rosen gleaned from the driver and from a road trip he took visiting modern warehouses along the New Jersey Turnpike helped the firm gain business.

Clients hired Weil Gotshal to represent them in four of North America’s five largest industrial real-estate transactions in the past two years. “Clients want more than just somebody who can do paperwork on transactions,” Mr. Rosen said. “You have to be able to give business advice.”

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