Donald H. Siskind

Qualifications and Career Profile

Mr. Siskind concentrates his practice in real estate law.

Mr. Siskind’s extensive experience has been utilized in many of the largest and most complex real estate transactions, including the 1987 sale of The Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited. This transaction, together with the separate sale of the United States urban and industrial property divisions, is known to have been the largest real estate transaction ever consummated at that time.

Other significant real estate transactions in which Mr. Siskind has been involved include: The formation of the Houston Center joint venture between Cadillac Fairview and Texas Eastern, covering 33 blocks in downtown Houston; the submission to cooperative organization of North Shore Towers, one of the largest co-op conversions ever; the lease with an option to purchase by Sony of the AT&T Madison Avenue headquarters; purchase of the IBM World Headquarters Madison Avenue; the development of regional shopping malls throughout the United States; and the structuring of over $1 billion in convertible mortgages during the late eighties. He has advised Columbia University on real estate matters for more than twenty-five years.

Mr. Siskind has been listed in Best Lawyers in America since its first publication and is listed in Who’s Who in the Law, Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World, Who’s Who Legal, Euromoney’s Guide to the World’s leading Real Estate Lawyers, and Global Counsel. In 2004 the American College of Real Estate Lawyers awarded Mr. Siskind the Frederick S. Lane Award in recognition of exceptional service to the profession, the public and the College.

Associations and Committees

Mr. Siskind is a past President of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers. He was for many years a director of the Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited and is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Chicago Title Insurance Company. He is a past Chairman of the Anglo American Real Property Institute. He is a member of the New York Bar.

Mr. Siskind is a past member of the Board of Trustees of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum,  Smithsonian Institution and a past President of the Board of Education of Union Free School District #6 at Scarsdale, New York.

Lectures and Articles

Mr. Siskind is frequently a participant in, or chairman of, real estate seminars and conferences and has lectured frequently at the Wharton School of Business Real Estate Center, where he is a member of the Center’s Advisory Board and a past member of its Executive Committee. He has been a lecturer in law at Columbia University Law School where for several years he taught a seminar in advanced real estate transactions. He has written numerous articles and edited various monographs on the legal aspects of real estate and property investments.

Education

Mr. Siskind received his undergraduate degree (B.S., 1959) from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and his law degree (LL.B., 1962) from Columbia Law School.