IRVINE, CA-California-based real estate and business-law firm Allen Matkins has hired Shelby Q. McMahon to its real estate practice in the Orange County office. For the past four years, McMahon's real estate practice has focused on acquisitions and dispositions, leasing, development, real estate finance and other real estate-related matters, including land use and CEQA litigation.

McMahon recently assisted in a client's $100-million acquisition of a six-hotel portfolio totaling 1,527 rooms throughout Florida, Minnesota, North Carolina and Texas. She also assisted in representing a borrower in separate loan-modification transactions totaling more than $93 million, secured by retail shopping malls in Washington State. In separate transactions, she conducted land-use, zoning and entitlements due diligence for the acquisition of an historic building and development of a 22-story mixed-use retail project, each located in Downtown Los Angeles.

According to Drew M. Emmel, operating partner of Allen Matkins' Orange County office, McMahon “exemplifies the exceptional talent that Allen Matkins consistently hires. Her experience in a wide range of real estate-related matters will allow her to immediately contribute to our flourishing real estate group.”

McMahon is one of 11 new lateral attorneys the firm has hired in the last 10 months, in addition to the seven law-school graduates hired last fall. The firm now boasts more than 120 attorneys and is the largest such department of transactional real estate lawyers in the nation.

Regarding her new position, McMahon tells, GlobeSt.com, “Allen Matkins is an ideal fit for me. They have a robust real estate department and an impressive breadth of expertise as a firm."

As GlobeSt.com reported in May, the law firm recently named five new partners, with election to be effective July 1. Matthew Fogt, Alan Hearty, Brian Kintz, Alexander Nestor and Keith Yandell have been elected to the firm partnerships.