Real Estate Lawyers in Non-Real Estate Transactions

Sheila Nolan Gartland, a partner in the Vorys Columbus office and a member of the finance, energy and real estate group, co-authored an article titled “Real Estate Lawyers in Non-Real Estate Transactions” in the May 2014 edition of The Practical Real Estate Lawyer.  In the article, Gartland and her co-authors highlight the importance of real estate lawyers in other legal matters such mergers and acquisitions, corporate, financing and project development. 

The article states:

“In these instances, even though real estate may form an important part of the assets, the non-real estate attorney running the deal (the ‘Lead Lawyer’) may not realize the importance of real estate to the deal, and may not involve the real estate lawyer sufficiently early in the deal to allow the typical due diligence, survey, environmental, and title review that would be undertaken in a pure real estate deal. Even if a real estate lawyer is involved in a timely fashion, the Lead Lawyer (and the ultimate client) may not value real estate due diligence or understand the significance of real estate issues in the deal. Conversely, the real estate lawyer often does not have a sufficiently thorough knowledge of the deal to understand the multitude of other issues, perhaps of greater financial importance or complexity as compared with the real estate issues, or exactly how the real estate issues fit in with the overall transaction.”

To read a preview PDF of the article, visit The Practical Real Estate Lawyer  website.