Real Estate Transactions

Discipline, Strength, Diversity

Schnader’s Real Estate Practice Group serves a wide range of entrepreneurial, institutional and public sector clients, including developers, lenders, property owners, investment bankers, brokers, contractors, landlords, tenants, asset managers, loan portfolio advisers, REITs and other investors. Its substantive and geographic breadth, composed of real estate lawyers who have recognized areas of real estate specialization, enable the group to meet the needs of an astonishingly diverse clientele throughout all of Schnader’s principal offices.

In recent years Schnader’s real estate lawyers have played leading roles in high-profile projects involving the construction, renovation, sale or refinancing of convention centers, sports arenas, waterfront developments, multi-family housing distribution and warehouse centers, shopping centers, mixed-use commercial facilities, alternative energy plants, waste disposal systems, troubled real estate ventures and military installations excessed by the government for redevelopment in the private sector.

Schnader’s lawyers have been at the vanguard of all the most important emerging areas of real estate practice, including construction for the telecommunications industry, multiuse and special service districts funded through joint public-private initiatives, conduit lending and tax increment financing. Schnader’s real estate lawyers have guided clients participating in these projects from concept development to final closing, providing both oversight for the long-term and nuts-and-bolts attention to the mechanics of steering real estate projects through the maze of government regulation.

Another distinguishing feature of Schnader’s real estate practice is that it long ago broke through from the traditional barriers that have bound large firms. Many of Schnader’s real estate lawyers litigate extensively in their discrete subspecialties, drawing liberally, when and as appropriate, from the personnel and resources of Schnader’s Litigation Services Department.

Lawyers joining the Real Estate Practice Group, particularly those just entering the profession or transitioning to real estate from a different substantive field, learn from many senior attorneys practicing in several of our offices, as our practice group chair works continuously to improve and expand upon the experiences and education of less senior lawyers.

Practice Team Approach

Schnader has vigorously embraced the practice group management model, which redirects critical resources for planning and practice development from distant administrative bodies and into the hands of the substantive practitioners. Schnader’s Real Estate Practice group has taken that model one step further, creating several separate substantive practice teams and granting to each the resources and authority needed to operate at the front lines. Those practice teams reflect several of Schnader’s areas of greatest substantive strength:

• Retail, office, and industrial leasing
• Construction law
• Public/private development
• Creditor’s rights
• Lending
• Commercial and Residential Acquisitions and Sales

Our practice teams are poised to address client needs with both precision and depth, drawing upon the resources of Schnader’s seven principal offices located strategically throughout the country.

Our Diverse Clients

The range and the depth of our practice is perhaps best reflected in the diversity of our clients. We regularly represent major real estate clients including developers of industrial parks, offices and hotels, major universities, high net worth individuals, family offices and small businesses, public sector agencies, owners, tenants, mortgage lenders, design professionals, title insurance companies, real estate investment trusts and contractors on a local and national scale. We also represent a broad range of domestic and international businesses whose worldwide activities include substantial real estate needs. We also represent start-up organizations and individual entrepreneurs in the early stages of growing their business, addressing such real estate needs as the development of build-to-suit facilities, the acquisition or leasing of buildings or office space and a variety of zoning and planning matters.

An Integrated Approach to Delivering Services 

Many of Schnader’s real estate lawyers have had experience in both legal and business environments. A number of our attorneys have earned advanced degrees or licenses in real estate related disciplines, including architecture, engineering and title insurance. Schnader’s real estate lawyers who before joining Schnader had worked in the governmental arena draw still draw bountifully from experience, representing cities and other municipalities, drafting legislation and handling governmental proceedings.

Leadership in the Community

Schnader’s real estate attorneys have served in leadership positions in major bar and industry organizations including:

• American College of Real Estate Attorneys
• Commercial Real Estate Women
• National Business Institute
• Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Real Property Section
• American Bar Association’s Real Property, Probate and Trust Section

Our real estate lawyers also lecture frequently on real estate matters to other lawyers and to nonlegal professionals in the real estate field. Within recent years, we have participated in significant seminars and workshops on the Americans With Disabilities Act, estate/tax planning issues related to real estate, new developments in zoning and real estate development law, and bankruptcy and foreclosure/collection matters involving real estate.