Shopping Center and Retail Law

Our clients include numerous nationally recognized shopping center owners and developers. Currently, we represent over 20 million square feet of regional mall space owned by numerous nationally recognized shopping center owners and developers.

We also routinely advise landlords and tenants regarding lease and sublease concerns, including negotiating many of the country’s largest leases. We represent our clients in appraisal and arbitration proceedings as well as in lease disputes and determination.

How we serve our clients

Construction and Development – complex development and redevelopment projects throughout the United States with significant experience in:

• negotiating anchor leases and reciprocal easement agreements, including the effect of these agreements on financing and co-tenancy
• representing clients in various financing structures, including conventional construction financing, real estate tax and sales tax based financing, securitized financing and raising capital through real estate investment trusts
• counseling developers concerning their construction documents with architects, general contractors and construction managers

Leasing – a national leasing practice representing landlords, anchor tenants and national in-line retail tenants.  Our leasing attorneys are responsible for:

• drafting and negotiating leases for regional shopping centers containing in excess of twenty million square feet
• understanding the issues concerning construction, renovation, insurance and property management and integrate these legal principles to prepare a comprehensive lease

As a consequence of our vast experience and with the help of our skilled support staff, our attorneys deliver these legal services accurately and efficiently.

Litigation and Bankruptcy – our shopping center and retail law litigation practice focuses on the client’s specific goals in staffing individual matters and is able to handle economically both routine as well as complex litigation. Areas of representation in the retail area include

• lease enforcement and landlord-tenant disputes
• construction and mechanic’s lien litigation
• and free speech - public access issues.

For example, if the goal is to obtain possession of the premises, our staff focuses on achieving the result as efficiently and effectively as possible.  For more sophisticated issues such as CAM disputes, enforcement of radius clauses, disputes with anchor tenants or defense of claims of inadequate security, our lawyers bring you experience in handling those types of claims to assist clients in effectively protecting their interests.

The retail bankruptcy attorneys make use of the Firm’s national resources and represent shopping center owners in bankruptcies throughout the United States.

• Our bankruptcy attorneys are well versed in the issues crucial to protecting landlords in tenant bankruptcies.
• The practice maximizes its national presence and achieves high quality representation by joining the representation of landlords on common issues, thereby reducing individual client costs, while maintaining maximum involvement in tenant bankruptcies.

Because of the multi-disciplinary nature of the shopping center and retail law practice group, we are able to comprehensively advise and effectively represent landlords and tenants in virtually any type of dispute.

Property Management – our attorneys keep abreast of the latest issues affecting the retail industry by

• working with clients almost daily in developing responses to legal concerns so as to avoid disputes
• using the vast depth of the Firm’s resources, we are able to counsel clients on virtually every type of legal problem confronting shopping center managers, and
• because of our unique, hands-on approach, we are able to assist clients in reducing overall legal costs and liability by developing prompt, practical solutions to problems.

Environmental – the attorneys in our environmental practice serve client needs by

• counseling and representing major shopping center developers and tenants, affording them the legal protection to comply with and minimize exposure under the environmental laws.
• serving as counsel to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, helping shape federal policies and legislation that currently affect shopping center developers and tenants.

Their insight and legal skills aided them in successfully negotiating with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency resulting in the cost effective cleanup of the largest PCB site in the nation.

Real Estate Taxation – our real estate taxation attorneys have developed a practice that is particularly concentrated in representation of the concerns of regional malls.

We have assisted clients in structuring projects to determine the most accurate forecasting of annual real estate tax expenses to assist them in minimizing their real estate taxes.

Property Tax – we handle property tax proceedings for clients.  Our attorneys have been successful in obtaining assessment reductions, abatements and tax exemptions for owners, lessees of, and lenders to real estate.

Tax Litigation – we work to minimize our clients’ tax liabilities by contesting the IRS’s proposed deficiencies at the investigating agent level, before the Appeals Office of the IRS, or if necessary, litigating the issues in the United States Tax Court, the United States District Court or the Federal Court of Claims. Our tax controversy work includes:

• contesting proposed tax liens and levies
• negotiating collection issues with the IRS
• litigating questions of corporate officers’ personal liability for corporate obligations
• representing clients against the IRS or other governmental bodies regarding alleged tax obligations

Our litigation attorneys have had major successes in saving clients from large proposed tax liabilities by winning tax issues at trial. These have varied from questions as diverse as whether (i) a sale produced ordinary income or capital gain ($10 million victory); (ii) income was fraudulently under-reported ($42 million victory); and (iii) allowances of losses on a sale/leaseback transaction ($15 million victory).  Other successes include preventing charges from being filed against our clients involving allegations of fraud and other civil or criminal accusations, as well as in the successful defense of tax fraud indictments.