Bankruptcy: Ch. 7, 11 & 13

Real Estate: Contracts, Leases, Development

Corporate Law: Formation, Financing, Acquisition, Sale

Wills, Trusts & Estates

My professional experience spans three decades and four areas of business.

During the first ten years of my career, I focused on obtaining an MBA in finance and law degree from Fordham University while working at Chase Manhattan Bank, successfully managing portfolios of stocks and bonds in the Trust Investment Department of the Bank. I assisted in developing the criteria for establishing a strategic planning department for high net worth individuals.

A second area of focus began when I was engaged by a trust customer to resolve issues with a large real estate parcel.

During the next twelve years, I was in private practice primarily involving real estate development, small business corporations, and bankruptcy. That background led to my recruitment by a real estate developer in Phoenix. Soon I became an "in-house" counsel to that company, which acquired several pools of properties from the Resolution Trust Corporation [RTC]. My responsibilities involved the due diligence and research of 550 properties in 22 states. I coordinated the resolution of the myriad legal and financial issues that the company faced in the real estate developments and purchase and sale transactions.

From 1995 to 2001, I became involved in the legal and financial aspects of developing large housing community projects in California and France, and commercial real estate projects in South Korea and Thailand.

I then opened my own practice focusing on those areas where I have developed particular skills of value to companies and high net worth individuals. Based on that experience, my practice is focused on business strategy and capitalization, real estate due diligence, acquisition and sale transactions, venture capital investment reviews, corporate buy/sell agreements, estate planning, and foreign real estate endeavors.

I have been practicing law since my graduation from Harvard Law School in 1968.

For the first sixteen years, I practiced with the firm of Bell Boyd & Lloyd, a large law firm in Chicago that has recently merged into the international law firm of K & LGates.

I was a partner with that firm for the last 8 years of my association, practicing almost exclusively in the area of real estate law, focused primarily on development projects.

I moved to Phoenix in 1985 in order to become General Counsel to a syndicator/developer in Phoenix. That very successful company was stopped in its t racks by the passive investor rules of the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

In 1990, the Resolution Trust Corporation (the "RTC") was seeking experienced attorneys to help with the resolution and winding up all of virtually all of the savings and loan associations in the State of Arizona; I stayed with that federal agency until it closed the Phoenix office after three years, at which time I began a 12 year term as an in-house attorney with a private investment company that purchased one of the largest portfolios of real estate assets ever sold by the RTC.

It was during my years with the RTC, and subsequently with the private investment company, that I began to spend more and more time in the bankruptcy and real estate workout areas, in addition to the more traditional real estate work.  The projects the I was involved with varied from Housing Subdivisions in Phoenix to international development in France.  

I currently practice in the areas of bankruptcy, workouts, real estate development and real estate due diligence. My long time friend, Dennis, was continuing to grow his practice in Tucson, and asked me if I would be interested in helping him to service his increasing number of Phoenix based clients, by opening a satellite office for him in Scottsdale, to which I happily responded YES.