Real estate finance partner Paul Kovachev joins McDermott Will & Schulte in New York

As clients refinance, recapitalize, and buy in a market where every assumption in the model gets tested, McDermott Will & Schulte has added real estate finance partner Paul Kovachev to its Transactions Practice Group in New York.

Paul joins from Greenberg Traurig, where he practiced in the firm’s New York real estate group. Earlier in his career, he worked at Debevoise & Plimpton and in the financial statements audit practices of Ernst & Young and PwC.

For the private equity and healthcare clients who rely on McDermott Will & Schulte’s real estate team for financing and acquisition advice as they invest, Paul adds a lawyer who can work through a deal’s financial structure, bring in colleagues across the firm and draw on the firm’s healthcare, tax, and private equity teams when a transaction calls for it.

“Paul came to the law after years as an auditor and a fund CFO, and it shows in how he pressure-tests a deal’s numbers and structure before a lender or investor does,” said Harris Siskind, Global Head of the Transactions Practice Group. “Clients are refinancing, recapitalizing, and buying at a time when costlier financing and more selective lenders mean deals take more structuring to close. That rigor suits the way our real estate, private equity, and healthcare teams work together.”

Paul advises institutional owners, developers, lenders, and investors in CMBS and other mortgage financings, joint ventures, REIT matters, and workouts and restructurings across multifamily, senior housing, industrial, hospitality, office, and retail properties. He has closed more than $15 billion of transactions and has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America: Ones to Watch for New York Real Estate Law for multiple consecutive years.

Paul’s senior housing work sits where the firm’s real estate, healthcare, and private equity practices converge. He regularly handles acquisitions, dispositions, and financings of senior housing communities and portfolios, giving those clients a lawyer who knows the asset class — an increasingly capital-intensive one as operators face rising labor costs and aging properties coming up for refinancing.

“Good legal and business advice has to hold up in front of an investment or credit committee and an auditor, and that standard has shaped how I approach every deal,” Paul said. “McDermott Will & Schulte brings real estate together with private equity, tax, and a leading healthcare practice, which is how the sponsors, lenders, and senior housing operators I work with do business. That’s the practice I want to build here, and I’m excited to get started.”