The Leasing Group produces programs, roundtables and educational materials to assist lawyers in improving their lease negotiation and drafting skills on behalf of both landlords and tenants in all settings— retail, office, industrial and special. Also, the group suggests practical responses to significant judicial, legislative and regulatory actions that impact the drafting, assignment and mortgaging of leases and lease enforcement.
Leasing Group Committees
Assignment and Subletting
In an environment where space available for sublease exceeds space available for direct lease in some markets, once strong companies have faded away into bankruptcy court, and tenants require increased leasing flexibility, assignment and subleasing issues have assumed greater importance. This committee reviews the drafting techniques, landlord and tenant strategies, and legal interpretations that affect assignments and subleases and provides practical advice on changing trends.
Emerging Issues and Specialty Leases
The focus of this committee changes from time to time as the law and practice in commercial leasing develops. The committee monitors types of leases and clauses that are becoming popular as well as novel issues and theories arising in commercial leases that are contrary to the then “conventional wisdom”. The committee provides real estate practitioners with an exposure to, and a working knowledge of, commercial leases that involve property and/or leasehold interests not usually encountered in general real estate practice.
Ground Leasing
The committee explores legal issues related to ground leases from the perspectives of lessors, lessees, and their respective lenders. This focus means that the committee’s work delves not only into traditional leasing issues but also the financing issues that are a key differentiator of ground leases from other types of leases. The committee’s papers and programs seek to engage real estate and finance practitioners by presenting diverse viewpoints that reflect the ever-evolving nature of ground leasing in markets across the United States.
Industrial Leasing
The committee explores the respective obligations of landlord and tenant in industrial and warehouse leases and seeks to identify those issues that are unique to industrial and warehouse leasing and to explore current reasonable alternatives addressing those issues from both the landlord and tenant perspectives. These issues may include dealing with use of hazardous materials, including explosives and radioactive materials and cranes, restoration obligations, insurance issues and the impact of any disruption on business operations.
Office Leasing
The committee explores topical legal issues related to the leasing of office space from the viewpoint of landlord, tenant, lender and building manager. Although the prime emphasis is on leases in office towers and suburban office parks, the committee studies problems unique to smaller buildings and transactions, including under so-called “standard form” leases. The thrust of the committee’s work is to develop papers and programs presenting balanced views of issues of interest and benefit to practitioners on all sides of a leasing transaction.
Retail Leasing
This committee reviews and discusses issues unique to shopping centers and retail leases, from regional malls to power centers to local strip centers to single tenant space. The committee works with other committees on matters of common interest to all attorneys who do lease work.