Ira Waldman and Adam Weissburg of Cox Castle & Nicholson LLP discuss real estate investment in the post-recession climate.

Jay Epstien and Scott Weinberg oF DLA Piper LLP (US) discuss the slow but steady recovery of the commercial real estate industry.

The International Who's Who of Real Estate Lawyers has brought together two of the leading practitioners in world to discuss key issues facing lawyers today.

In the past few years the Australian government has been increasingly keen to encourage foreign investment in Australia to ensure Australia’s future growth and prosperity. Accordingly, the government has implemented a number of changes to foreign investment policy and law.

Commercial property values still have more room to fall. But they’re firming. We are seeing a meaningful transaction volume. But there really are not very many transactions. Each one is a special situation. Now is a great time to invest – if you haven’t already missed the bottom, which is still to come.

With the benefit of over 14 years of research and tens of thousands of votes from clients and private practitioners, Who’s Who Legal takes a closer look at developing trends in the real estate legal marketplace worldwide.

In this section we anlayse the findings of our research in greater depth to identify the firms and practitioners who stand out worldwide.

This edition lists 629 real estate law experts in 40 different jurisdictions, all of whom can be considered leaders in their field. Our international real estate law firm of the year DLA Piper LLP places more lawyers in this edition than any other firm, with a total of 26 listings from 14 offices across Europe, Asia, the Middle East and the USA.

The last time Who’s Who Legal examined the real estate markets in June 2009 we signed off our analysis by noting the decline of the real estate department as a major fee earner in full-service law firms.

The property market in the CIS has seen a drop-off in transactional work over the past year, and the lawyers we consulted are finding their restructuring and advisory skills are increasingly in demand. We feature 31 lawyers from seven jurisdictions in this chapter, which combines lawyers with construction and real estate backgrounds.

The International Who's Who of Real Estate Lawyers 2009 identifies 467 lawyers in 37 countries.

In 2007, following a decade of continual growth, the real estate markets began to slow as financing contracted and prices fell.

Fifty-five leading real estate attorneys were chosen for this chapter. They have a wide range of specialisms from real estate funding to land use and sales. Although in the past year there has been a reported fall in the price of housing and commercial property markets in California, the talent of these lawyers has enabled them to maintain strong real estate practices.

Times are tough in the real estate sector, and Texas is feeling the pinch as much as any other state.

From the ever-impressive Palm development to a hotel to be designed by Hollywood star Brad Pitt, the UAE's expanding real estate portfolio has caught the attention of the world. As the region's real estate sector booms, a new foreign investment law designed to facilitate and regulate foreign investment and due to come into force after 2008 is only expected to increase the influx. In a jurisdiction where construction law has traditionally been more prominent than real estate law, firms have spotted the opportunity to further aid their clients by tapping into this practice area. Practitioners able to keep pace with the changes in the law in this increasingly sophisticated market are essential in such circumstances, and seven lawyers from six firms make the grade, a mixture of local and international experts.