Commercial Real Estate Leasing

With a substantial track record advocating for tenants, landlords, lenders, and other stakeholders, we are equipped to counsel clients on all sides of the leasing process. Our transaction lawyers help clients negotiate with confidence as they conceive, implement, and if needed, extricate themselves from leasing transactions. Our litigation lawyers work closely with in-house lawyers and business teams to counsel tenants and landlords on mitigating risk, maximizing recoveries, and resolving disputes without resorting to litigation. When litigation cannot be avoided, our team is poised to litigate lease issues in state and federal courts across the country.

Transactions and Counseling

We negotiate and evaluate commercial leases in various forms, including ground leases, bondable warehouse leases, build-to-suit deals, sale-leaseback transactions, co-location leases, co-manufacturing lease arrangements, and more typical retail and office transactions. Both domestically and internationally, we have successfully closed numerous deals on time and to our clients’ advantage. Our team proficiently handles the complexities of design and construction contracts so these can work for our clients. We also have successfully extricated clients from leases that no longer serve their needs, often without recourse to litigation.

Our clients range from landlords and tenants to hospitality concerns, for and not-for-profit institutions, lenders, buyers, and sellers. In all instances, we keep our clients’ commercial objectives at the forefront of our work. We work collaboratively with our clients to understand their needs, on both a strategic and granular level, to inform and advise our clients, and to realize our clients’ expectations.

We handle all aspects of the leasing process, including drafting, reviewing, and negotiating:

• Letters of intent
• Leases
• Work letters and construction-related agreements
• Extension agreements and other lease amendments
• Termination and workout agreements

We also have experience drafting, reviewing, and negotiating:

• Lease assignment and assumption agreements
• Signage rights
• Parking and easement agreements
• Lease guarantees
• Subleases
• Subordination and non-disturbance agreements and estoppel certificates
• Landlord consents

Litigation and Disputes

Our nationwide litigation practice represents companies throughout the litigation lifecycle, from pre-litigation counseling and investigation through trial and appeal. Our experience covers the spectrum of real estate and commercial matters, including premises-related issues, construction disputes, co-tenancy disputes, lease interpretation issues, end of lease issues, audit-related claims, and vendor disputes.

For over a decade, our team has served as national trial counsel for several retailers. We have secured notable wins that have saved clients millions of dollars in rent and carried broader implications across their lease portfolios. Our team directs and manages the litigation strategy for all lease disputes in these clients’ portfolios and coordinates legal strategy for local counsel on lower-stakes disputes.

We also work closely with our clients’ in-house legal, business, and audit teams to determine overcharges and identify recovery opportunities, including for:

• Rent or co-tenancy rent
• Common area maintenance (CAM)
• Operating costs
• Real estate taxes
• Costs associated with lease termination issues