Legal skills for the industry

Real Estate Weekly, July 2, 2003

Members of the real estate industry face a complex set of legal issues that require a diverse set of legal skills and specialties. After nearly three decades of practicing law in New York, Allan Starr called on his experience to create a team of attorneys with the expertise to provide broad-based legal representation for the industry.

Andrea L. Roschelle, Samantha Sheeber, Sallie Schlam Levi, and Evan Schieber lead the firm's practice groups in a variety of disciplines. The result, Starr Associates LLP, features practice groups offering a full range of services, including cooperative and condominium board representation, timeshare registration, litigation and dispute resolution, sales, acquisitions, financing, and commercial leasing.

The attorneys at the firm combine creative solutions with practical techniques to achieve success with even the most complex of real estate transactions. The different practice groups work together, aiming to merge the transactional end of real estate with litigation and dispute resolution services, with an eye toward avoiding litigation before conflict erupts. Successful integration and communication have enabled the firm to offer quick, comprehensive advice.

The offering plan and timeshare registration group handles all aspects of cooperative, condominium, and timeshare law, and offering plan registration. The attorneys provide counsel and advice from the earliest stages of the development process and shepherd clients through all phases, from construction to closing. The firm's attorneys have participated in the registration of nearly 50,000 units. Firm clients have included the sponsors of some of Manhattan's most prestigious condominium projects, such as 515 Park Ave., 425 Fifth Ave., The Impala, The Seville, and 124 Hudson St.

Allan Starr was a pioneer of the first 'urban' timeshare project in New York, participating in the creation and registration of a timeshare project at the Park Central Hotel in 1996. The firm's time-share practice now includes projects and vacation clubs throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, Europe, and the Middle East. Its client list includes owners of major hotel franchises and independent hoteliers across the country.

The firm's cooperative and condominium board representation practice group serves as general counsel to the boards of numerous cooperatives, condominiums, and homeowner associations, while also representing the managing agents that serve these properties. Ranked in the top five of New York's most active cooperative and condominium law firms, Starr Associates LLP serves as general counsel to the Association of Cooperative and Condominium Managers, a professional organization of residential property management firms in the New York metropolitan area. The group counsels boards, managing agents, and owners of unsold shares and blocks of condominium units in all aspects of cooperative and condominium ownership. Services include the interpretation of by-laws, proprietary leases, and condominium declarations, as well as redrafting of outdated corporate documents. The practice group assists cooperatives in refinancing underlying building loans, mediates and, where necessary, litigates with lenders and defaulting spo nsors.

Attorneys with the litigation and dispute resolution practice group protect and enforce rights under corporate and commercial agreements of all types. The firm's attorneys work closely with clients at all stages of litigation to develop cost effective strategies. They have extensive experience handling all varieties of commercial disputes, real estate controversies, and employment claims, and represent both property owners and tenants in land valuation proceedings, and litigation over rent disputes and rent determination. The attorneys participate in a broad range of actions and proceedings in the state and federal courts, both on the trial and appellate levels, handle arbitration, mediations, and represent clients before governmental and administrative agencies.