BOSTON—The newly named chairman of DLA Piper's US Real Estate Practice tells GlobeSt.com exclusively that he is looking to grow the law firm's operations in many US gateway cities in 2016.

John Sullivan, who was named co-chair of the global law firm's US Real Estate Practice in July of 2015, has been named chair of the group, succeeding Jay Epstien, who will continue in his current role as co-chair of DLA Piper's global Real Estate practice with Olaf Schmidt, who practices in the firm's Milan office. Sullivan will continue to be based at DLA Piper's Boston office at 33 Arch St.

Sullivan, 58, praised Epstein who has led the firm's US Real Estate Practice for about the last 12 years. He says that his appointment to chair the practice is part of what he terms as a planned transitioning of leadership in many of the law firm's practice groups. Sullivan says that his main role will be focusing on the strategic planning and growth of the US Real Estate Practice.

The law firm currently has about 175 real estate attorneys across its offices in the United States which includes locations in Albany, NY, Atlanta, Austin, TX, Baltimore (2), Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles (2), Miami, Minneapolis, New Jersey (2), New York, Northern Virginia, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Raleigh, NC, Sacramento, San Diego (2), San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, FL, Washington, DC and Wilmington, DE.

Sullivan tells GlobeSt.com that he is very bullish on the real estate practice's growth prospects going forward. "We are looking to hire more attorneys in almost every market we are in." he says. Sullivan mentioned New York, Boston, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chicago as among the markets where he is focused on in terms of growth.

He says the aforementioned gateway cities have seen a tremendous amount of real estate transactions over the past five years and he expects that volume will continue into the future. Earlier this year, Sullivan told GlobeSt.com that a significant infusion of foreign capital has fueled growth in the real estate markets in many US gateway cities.

While he does not have a specific employee growth target for the real estate practice in 2016, he says, "Absent of a major market correction, I can't imagine that we are going to get to the point where we are saying we want to stop hiring in the next 12 months."

He says that while there is some concern over the turmoil over China's economy as well as the volatility in the energy markets, Sullivan says that many investors see the real estate sector, and particularly US real estate in gateway cities as a safe haven.

"Does the falling price of oil influence how I think we should be growing in certain cities, sure it does, but I am not overly worried about it for the next year or so," he notes.

Sullivan, who has led the Boston Real Estate group since joining DLA Piper's predecessor firm Piper Rudnick in 2003, has a broad-based commercial real estate practice, with a particular emphasis on representing public and private pension plans, opportunity funds, investment advisors and non-US investors in joint venture, preferred equity, financing, acquisition and sale transactions. Sullivan is also a member of the firm's executive and policy committees. Sullivan previously worked for the law firm Hill & Barlow. He gained significant real estate experience when he worked for real estate advisory firm AEW Capital Management from 1987 to 1994 where he was responsible for acquisitions, sales and financing. During the early 1990s, he was in charge of all workouts and restructurings for AEW.

Previous to his tenure there, the Cornell Law School graduate worked for the Nutter McClennen and Fish law firm.

DLA Piper was formed in January 2005 by a merger between three law firms: San Diego-based Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich LLP, Piper Rudnick LLP and United Kingdom-based DLA LLP.