Irish law firm Dillon Eustace is beefing up its real estate practice with the recruitment of property lawyer Kelly O’Hara to head it up. Ms O Hara joins as new head of the practice, succeeding Paul Eustace. As a former senior legal adviser at the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA) and former partner at William Fry, Ms O Hara is experienced in property acquisitions, sales, financing, development projects and complex conveyancing matters. 

Distressed real estate

This is the second real estate partner appointment in less than four months, building on the recent addition of partner Martin Colman from Arthur Cox. The hire of Ms O Hara follows the firm’s recent work on high profile and high value transactions including two of Europe’s top five largest distressed real estate loan transactions in 2016. Commenting on the appointment, Mark Thorne, managing partner said: ‘Kelly is an immensely experienced and talented lawyer; her addition underlines our commitment to growing our real estate and real estate finance practice and galvanises our efforts to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the Irish and European real estate lending market. Having advised a broad range of corporate, institutional, multi-national and private clients, Kelly will prove a valuable addition to our team and bolster our offering to existing and future clients.’