INTERDISCIPLINARY

 


The Investment Funds Practice Group: The Real Estate Group's practice as counsel to opportunistic funds in the real estate area, coupled with the Corporate Group's expertise in representing funds that engage in corporate transactions in the securities of public and private issuers, make this group an excellent choice for representing an opportunistic, private equity, distress or other investment fund that invests in almost any type of distressed, real estate, corporate or securities transaction.

The International Practice Group: In recent years our clients have ventured outside the United States to deploy their capital. These ventures present particular concerns as our clients ultimately want the same legal protections that they enjoy in the U.S.; however, virtually all foreign jurisdictions have legal intricacies that are different from the U.S. To address this client need, partners in the firm's Transactional Practice Group have developed significant experience in structuring and handling these cross-border transactions in various foreign jurisdictions including Asia, Europe, and South America. We expect this practice area to grow significantly in coming years.

The Employment Practice Group: Our Employment Practice Group represents clients in all types of employment actions including age, race, disability and sex discrimination actions, and in wrongful termination actions. The group also counsels clients on a wide range of employment matters including employee discipline and discharge issues, development of employment policies and procedures, negotiation and drafting employment agreements, and compliance with federal and state employment laws. Messrs. Taffet, Bradham and Samuels have extensive experience in representing clients on employment matters before the EEOC, state administrative employment agencies and numerous federal courts.


The Hotels and Resorts Practice Group: Partners in this practice group are experienced in managing transactions and issues involving hospitality and resort properties of all types and price points, including condo-hotels and timeshare developments. The group's experience includes acquisitions, dispositions, negotiations of a multitude of hospitality related agreements including development, franchise, management and operating agreements, lease arrangements, entitlements, financing, and litigation of a broad range of hospitality related issues. Additionally, we represent our hospitality clients in connection with their associated corporate and real estate matters. Since hospitality transactions in essence, blend a "corporate" transaction with the principal elements of a "real estate" transaction, our Hotels and Resorts Practice Group melds the skills of the Firm's corporate and real estate specialists into a single group, quite capable of handling this type of hybrid transaction.

The Retail Practice Group: The Firm's attorneys have extensive experience representing retail parties, especially in insolvency situations. This includes: (1) Mr. Menkes' development of a national retail tenant leasing practice (largely through Polo Ralph Lauren, Prada and Kmart), (2) Mr. Brett's representation of acquirers of leases and other assets in retail bankruptcy cases, as well as Accessory Place as chapter 11 debtor, (3) Mr. Stachenfeld's in-house experience with a shopping center developer and representation of Channel Homes in the years prior to its insolvency, and (4) the Real Estate Group's expertise in representing Kmart Corporation/Sears Holdings in various real estate transactions.


The Restructuring and Workouts Practice Group: This group combines the significant workout, restructuring and distressed asset acquisition and disposition experience of the corporate and real estate practice groups with the expertise of the litigation and bankruptcy practice groups, and positions the Firm as an ideal choice for clients involved in any aspect of a distressed situation. The collective expertise of the attorneys involved in this group includes (1) experience at all stages (and on behalf of all sides) of the restructuring spectrum, including out-of-court restructurings, compositions, extensions and workouts, pre-packaged and consensual bankruptcies, and full-blown bankruptcies, (2) experience representing parties at every level of the capital structure as well as parties seeking to purchase distressed companies or their assets through plans of reorganization, asset sales pursuant to court approved sales, or the purchase of claims, (3) experience representing commercial banks, hedge funds and other parties in connection with the purchase and sale of securities and bank loans of distressed or bankrupt companies, and (4) experience on all sides of secured lending transactions, including debtor-in-possession financing, cash collateral problems, automatic stay and adequate protection litigation.

 

The Tax Exempt Real Estate Practice Group: This group was established to combine the top-level talent and experience of our vaunted Real Estate Practice Group with the particular expertise of our Tax Exempt Practice Group in dealing with tax exempt entities (including churches, synagogues and other religious organizations).  David Samuels, who is co-head of our tax exempt practice group, was identified by New York Magazine as one of the seven best not-for-profit lawyers in New York City and, to make matters even better, David worked at the New York Attorney General’s office as Deputy Chief of the Charities Bureau for eight years handling exactly these types of real estate matters.  The combination of one of the best real estate practices in the U.S. coupled with David’s particular expertise dealing with tax exempt entities makes the firm’s Tax Exempt Real Estate Practice Group logically the number one choice for a real estate transaction involving a tax exempt organization. 

 

 

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