An institutional lender must understand that no loan exists in a vacuum. Instead, it stands atop an unseen mountain of drafting conventions, statutes, caselaw, and bankruptcy practices. Protecting the lender is not just a matter of deal points and documents; it requires anticipating how a borrower will use them to break his contract.

TOUGHER DEALS

The thousands of lawsuits that followed the recent credit and liquidity crisis revealed loan structuring and document vulnerabilities lenders never knew they had.

The clash between lenders and guarantors over special-purpose-entity provisions and non-recourse carve-out guarantees, for example, revealed where loan documents were weak, poorly worded, or unenforceable. The lender’s counsel who doesn’t understand these court decisions will miss the problems that undermine the foundations of his clients’ business.

Working with new real estate loan documents is like catching a falling sword. Catch it right, and it becomes your weapon to use. But, handle it wrong, and you’ll bleed.

For over twenty-five years, our principals have represented lenders in complex real estate financings and litigation. During the financing boom starting in 2002, we secured the interests of our clients as lending became ever more complicated and competitive. After the credit crunch, we tested the debt and equity structures that we built, worked them to our clients’ advantage, and helped them emerge and grow as the markets recovered.

FINANCING SERVICES

Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP uses its experience to protect lenders in a difficult financing environment. We have negotiated and closed hundreds of financing structures with institutional lenders.

The firm’s practice runs across the spectrum of cutting-edge debt arrangements, including construction loans, permanent bank portfolio lending, insurance and pension-fund financing, and CMBS and other securitized loans, through every conceivable equity financing vehicle, from tenant-in-common arrangements, partnerships, and limited liability companies. The firm has mastered the most complex documentary provisions. Few lawyers have negotiated, documented, and closed more loans of so many types as ours. Beyond that, our lawyers understand the special concerns of the many types of borrowers, from large institutions to medium-sized entrepreneurial development groups.

REPRESENTATIVE TRANSACTIONS

Among other financings and transactions, the lawyers of Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP have:

• Negotiated and closed approximately $760,000,000 in securitized real-property-secured loan transactions with major conduit lenders.
• Organized, negotiated, and executed all financing aspects of the development of a $70,000,000 senior housing project in Orange County, California.
• Organized, negotiated, and executed all financing aspects of a $65,000,000 for-sale condominium development project in southern California.
• Negotiated, documented, and closed the financing of a $50,000,000 retail center in Torrance, California.
• Negotiated, documented, and closed over $800,000,000 in acquisitions of multifamily, retail, office, industrial, public storage, and other real properties.
• Negotiated, documented, and closed the financing of a $65,000,000 retail center in Orange County, California.
• Negotiated, documented, and closed the financing of a $14,000,000 office building in Long Beach, California.
• Negotiated, documented, and closed the financing of a $9,000,000 hospital and medical office building complex in Santa Ana, California and coordinated the re-entitlement of the property.
• Negotiated, drafted, and closed the sale of real and personal property-secured loans valued at $28,500,000 for client money-center bank.
• Negotiated and closed the workout of $25,000,000 in low-income housing bonds for client money-center bank.
• Negotiated, drafted, and closed over $250,000,000 in secured construction loans for several institutional lenders, and negotiated and closed the workouts of many of these loans.
• Negotiated, drafted, and administered a $100,000,000 real and personal property secured line of credit for an out-of-state institutional lender.

THE NEW REAL ESTATE REALITY

Is there any end to real estate’s complexities?

The last credit and liquidity crisis changed everything for developers, owners, and investors. The thousands of lawsuits that followed the downturn, and the vulnerabilities they revealed in older transactions, demand a renewed, intense concentration on deal structures and documentation.

For example, the clash between lenders and guarantors over special-purpose-entity provisions and non-recourse carve-out guarantees has taught lenders to re-engineer those and other terms, leaving them more complex than ever. Today’s property owner, guided by experienced counsel, must have the clearest view of how these will change the foundations of their business.

For over thirty years, our principals have represented developers, investors, and owners in complex real estate financings, developments, and acquisitions. After the credit crunch, we tested the debt and equity structures that we built, worked them to our clients’ advantage, and helped them emerge and grow as markets improved.

You’ve learned to control entitlement risk, development risk, and market risk. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP has mastered the legal risks.

SOLVING DEVELOPERS’ PROBLEMS

Our lawyers know intimately each challenge that comes from moving a project from concept to sale. We design sophisticated equity investment structures and assess critical entitlement issues. We solve title problems. As the project moves forward, we work development agreements and incentives with municipalities and put easements in place. When it’s time to build, we negotiate and close construction financing. As the project proceeds, we handle contractors, subcontractors, and mechanics liens. When the certificate of occupancy approaches, we ready master lease forms and negotiate specific retail, industrial, and office leases.

Today, every California development project is a hard one. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP knows major projects – and their thousands of legal details – from the ground up.

PROPERTY ACQUISITIONS PRACTICE

We are expert in organizing acquisitions and closings of real estate portfolios and major real estate projects. Our experience ranges from hotels and hospitality, large retail centers, office complexes, and multifamily projects to industrial and warehouse products and hospitals. We know the differing demands of each. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP can take control of the entire acquisition process from the letter-of-intent phase, through negotiating and documenting the purchase agreement, policing the due diligence, and managing the buyer and its staff, the seller, lenders, escrow, and title through closing. Few firms have our breadth of experience in executing complex, multi-property, and high-intensity closings.

ACQUISITION ANALYSIS SERVICES

The firm has performed every aspect of legal due diligence for the acquisition of property portfolios and every real estate product type. It knows title review and title policy management, lease review and abstracting, permit, approval, and regulatory compliance analyses, hazardous materials risk mitigation strategies, project file review, building defect issues, and failure-to-disclose disputes. The firm’s attorneys have successfully handled thousands of due diligence issues.

FINANCING PRACTICE

Our experience runs the spectrum of the many equity financing vehicles, from tenant-in-common arrangements, syndications, REITS, partnerships, limited liability companies, and corporations, through every conceivable debt arrangement, including construction lending, permanent bank portfolio loans, insurance and pension-fund lending, and CMBS and other securitized loans. Our lawyers understand the special requirements of each type of lender, including crucial personal recourse and guarantee provisions.

REPRESENTATIVE TRANSACTIONS

Among other developments, acquisitions, and financings, the lawyers of Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP have

• Negotiated and closed over $850,000,000 in acquisitions of multifamily, retail, office, industrial, public storage, and other real properties.
• Negotiated and closed approximately $760,000,000 in securitized real-property-secured loan transactions with major conduit lenders.
• Organized, negotiated, and executed all legal aspects of the development of a $70,000,000 senior housing project in Orange County, California.
• Organized, negotiated, and executed all legal aspects of the development of a $65,000,000 for-sale condominium project in southern California.
• Negotiated, documented, and closed the financing of a $50,000,000 retail center in Torrance, California.
• Negotiated, documented, and closed the acquisition and financing of a $65,000,000 retail center in Orange County, California.
• Negotiated, documented, and closed the financing of a $14,000,000 office building in Long Beach, California.
• Negotiated, documented, and closed the acquisition and financing of a $9,000,000 hospital and medical office building complex in Santa Ana, California and coordinated the re-entitlement of the property.
• Organized and managed staff for acquisition of a portfolio of commercial real property projects located in four states and valued at $65,000,000 for two national real estate investment funds.
• Negotiated, drafted, and closed the sale of real and personal property-secured loans valued at $28,500,000 for client money-center bank.
• Negotiated and drafted purchase of hospitality and industrial properties in two states valued at $10,000,000 for client insurance company.
• Negotiated and closed workout of $25,000,000 in low-income housing bonds for client money-center bank.
• Negotiated, drafted, and closed over $250,000,000 in secured construction loans for several institutional lenders, and negotiated and close...d the workouts of several of these loans.
• Negotiated, drafted, and administered a $100,000,000 real and personal property secured line of credit for an out-of-state institutional lender.

WE SOLVE REAL ESTATE PROBLEMS

Whether an owner struggles to secure refinancing, a landlord loses a crucial tenant, or a builder carries overpriced housing inventory, all troubled real estate projects have a few things in common: they must preserve value and minimize liability to grow profit. And they need time to do it.

Yet, Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP knows the solution to every troubled project is different. Each presents its own nuances, differing creditors’ priorities, arcane debt and equity structures, entitlement challenges, and so on. These complexities can be staggering. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman LLP approaches each situation with the creativity it demands. Our principals have guided clients through three historic downturns; we sharpen that focus on today’s real estate challenges.

We bring foresight to troubled projects, foresight won from our long experience.

CREDITORS’ RIGHTS PRACTICE

The goal of our creditor’s rights practice is always this: Preserve collateral and recover it. However, the firm’s standard for determining success is different than most. We focus on what is critical to the client – the net yield achieved on the distressed collateral. We present to the lender a broader range of options than one sees in the usual contested liquidation, and we attack issues with a business-savvy, multidisciplinary team that can implement the plan. We get a higher yield at a lower cost – with less risk.

The Real Estate Lender.  A construction lender is often forced to take possession of the partly-completed residential or mixed-used development that serves as collateral for the loan. These broken projects present a dizzying array of liquidation, completion, and liability challenges that require an experienced hand. The principals of Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP have worked through these problems many times before. They understand the product, the development business, and the host of regulatory, entitlement, construction, financing, and sales challenges that the lender will face during the liquidation process. We solve real estate problems.

The Asset-Based Lender.  The value of an accounts receivable pool and inventory base often evaporates when the underlying business fails, threatening to leave even the well-secured lender with severe losses. In contrast, where the underlying business remains viable during the disposition process, value recovery is far better. For these reasons, our team works to preserve both the collateral base and, as often as possible, the going-concern value of the borrower’s business. We achieve favorable recoveries through external recapitalizations, expedited mergers, and asset sales. Forced liquidations are always and only the last resort.

The Unsecured Creditor.  Our principals have represented venture capital funds holding convertible debentures, vendors with trade claims, distressed debt funds owning discounted paper, and other unsecured creditors of every type. In some instances, repayment is the objective; in others, we plan a hostile acquisition. But in each case, the firm has the skill and experience to tailor a legal and business strategy to protect the creditor’s interests. 

Strategic Receiverships.  Too often, creditors do not consider the receivership option. A receiver is a court-appointed representative who can protect collateral, recover it, and dispose of all or any portion. A receiver can also take control of an insolvent business and sell it. Receivers make sense when a creditor wants to control rents from an income property. In addition, a receiver can preserve value in the following, more unusual, situations:

• The Receiver for the Broken Development. When a builder abandons a real estate project in mid-development, it leaves its lenders with a bewildering range of problems – from infrastructure and regulatory issues, to liability to homeowners for incomplete common areas, to the administrative burdens of completing a project. Any of these can devastate the project’s value. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP provides critical guidance to lenders in all of these phases.
• The Receiver for the Fraudulent Business. Often a receiver should be installed when the borrower has operated the business fraudulently. Here, the receiver must both stop the fraud and preserve the business. Some receivers forget that the lender’s charge is to get paid, not to get even. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP has the experience and the relationships necessary to maximize the creditor’s return.
• The Receiver for the Insolvent Business. The market for some products is so volatile that their shelf-life can be measured in days. In a brief time, a business worth millions can be rendered valueless. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP’s principals are expert in the full range of insolvency challenges and understand how to install a skilled receiver to keep value high.

LITIGATION STRATEGY

Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP has deep creditor and real-estate litigation experience. We intimately understand claims arising from real estate transactions, including lender liability, guarantor liability, fraudulent transfers, and the range of strategies within Chapter 11 proceedings.

• Valuation Litigation. A sharp decline in a property’s value can revive a very old lender’s strategy: judicial foreclosure. This move preserves a lender’s right to sue the borrower for amounts that cannot be collected after the far-more-common trustee’s sale. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP litigates valuation cases involving raw and entitled land, single and multi-family projects, commercial buildings, office complexes, and shopping centers. We know the nuances of valuation methodologies in these contests.
• Fraudulent Transfer Defense. Whenever insolvencies arise, dividends and distributions to principals made during better times must be scrutinized. Often, they can be attacked as fraudulent transfers. Our principals have been litigating fraudulent transfers claims for decades.
• Preservation of Electronically Stored Information. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP’s Madison S. Spach, Jr. had electronic-discovery expertise long before the federal e-discovery rules were issued. Both before and after the rules were enacted, Mr. Spach served on expert e-discovery panels, and he knows how to find electronically-stored information that can make or break a case. Mr. Spach is one of the nation’s leading practitioners in this fast-changing discipline.

WHEN THE CRISIS COMES

For over thirty years, Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP’s principals have protected developers, builders, property owners, investors, and guarantors in complex acquisitions, challenging sales and financings, foreclosures, acrimonious workouts, and Chapter 11 reorganizations – and in the widest range of sophisticated litigation matters. We understand the real estate industry, its financing options, and the litigation threats inevitable in a failing project.

ASSET PRESERVATION AND LIABILITY MANAGEMENT

Any major real estate project imposes risks on every party involved, not only market, entitlement, and environmental risks, but also the risk of management and investor disputes, liability to lenders, and the inability to refinance or sell the asset. We manage risk for our clients.

Minimizing Owner Risk. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP works with owners to maximize their asset’s value, improve cash flow, and reduce debt through the workout process. We engage lenders, trade creditors, and government authorities, and we determine the best strategy, whether restructuring and reviving the business or selling its assists for their maximum value. Our deep experience allows us to present not only effective legal strategies, but practical business solutions.

Individual Risk Management. Owners of construction projects often guarantee loan repayment and project completion. Others may guaranty “bad-boy” carve-out liabilities. They can also face liability claims from investors, trade creditors, homeowners, municipalities, and others who have been promised (or so they say) a successful project. We know the territory. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP limits recourse, protects assets, and helps to turn the project around. Most importantly, we plan early and move aggressively.

Defensive Deal Structuring.  Liability can be minimized if it is thoroughly anticipated. We work through every deal, build defensive structures, and protect the principals. Then, we plan for the next act: preserving the possibility of profit once the crisis passes. The firm’s principals are expert in designing and negotiating structures that will survive a legal challenge.

Litigation Strategy. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP understands the full scope of claims arising from real estate transactions, including those for construction defects, breach of contract and fiduciary duty, guarantor liability, securities fraud, fraudulent transfers, and the entire range of claims arising in Chapter 11 proceedings. Our litigation planning practice emphasizes designing internal procedures for clients that mitigate – or entirely avoid – litigation threats. In addition, Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP’s planning extends to:

• Valuation Litigation. A decline in a project’s value may resurrect an old strategy: a lender can pursue judicial foreclosure to preserve its right to sue the borrower for any amount not recovered at the foreclosure. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP litigates valuation cases involving raw and entitled land, single and multi-family projects, retail buildings, office complexes, and shopping centers. We know the many nuances of valuation methodologies in these contests.
• Fraudulent Transfer Defense. When insolvency arises, dividends, distributions, and fees to principals made during better times are carefully scrutinized. Often, they will be attacked as fraudulent transfers. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP’s principals have defended fraudulent transfers claims for decades.
• Preservation of Electronically Stored Information. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP’s Madison S. Spach, Jr. had electronic-discovery expertise long before the federal e-discovery rules were issued. Both before and after the rules were enacted, Mr. Spach served on expert e-discovery panels, and he knows how to find electronically-stored information that can make or break a case. Mr. Spach is one of the nation’s leading practitioners in this fast-changing discipline.

The last credit and liquidity crisis changed everything for TIC sponsors and their investors – and the effects are with us still. 

Some of their projects lost crucial tenants. Others struggled to restructure debt, while lenders underwrote collateral far more conservatively than they had only a few years before. All had something in common: They labored to minimize liability and recover value.

INVESTORS VERSUS SPONSORS

Many real-estate projects present staggering challenges, especially given all of the creditors, servicers, bondholders, investors, tenants, and other stakeholders who can apply pressure. This is especially true when TIC sponsors and their investors are at odds. Even within the investors’ group itself, competing interests drive complications that demand special experience. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP offers its clients business-savvy legal counsel with the rare ability to anticipate these problems before they arise. During the boom times, we guided sponsors and their TICs as acquisition and financing structures became ever more complicated. During the downturn and beyond, we built on that experience, protected our clients with the foresight sophisticated workouts demand, and, in court, demonstrated our command of the sponsor’s and investors’ competing strengths and weaknesses.

LITIGATION STRATEGY

Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP understands the full scope of claims arising from real estate projects, including those for construction defects, breach of contract and fiduciary duty, guarantor liabilities, securities fraud, fraudulent transfers, and the entire range of strategies available in Chapter 11 proceedings. In addition, Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP’s practice extends to:

• Valuation Litigation. A decline in a project’s value may resurrect an old strategy: A Lender can pursue judicial foreclosure to preserve its right to sue the borrower for any amount not recovered at the sale. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP litigates valuation cases involving raw and entitled land, single and multi-family projects, retail buildings, office complexes, and shopping centers. We know the many nuances of valuation methodologies in these contests.
• Fraudulent Transfer Issues. When insolvency arises, dividends, distributions, and fees to TIC sponsors made during better times are carefully scrutinized. Often, they will be attacked as fraudulent transfers. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP’s principals have litigated fraudulent transfers claims for decades. The firm’s expertise is particularly valuable when investors attempt to reclaim those funds.
• Preservation of Electronically Stored Information. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP’s Madison S. Spach, Jr. had electronic-discovery expertise long before the federal e-discovery rules were issued. Both before and after the rules were enacted, Mr. Spach served on expert e-discovery panels, and he knows how to find electronically-stored information that can make or break a case. Mr. Spach is one of the nation’s leading practitioners in this fast-changing discipline.

Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP’s Construction Disputes Group has mediated, arbitrated, and tried a wide variety of commercial and residential construction matters arising from contract disputes, allegations of defective construction, land use (including signage and First Amendment issues), and insurance coverage claims, as well as claims against architects, insurers, accountants, and lenders.

Our work includes victories representing:

• Developers and owners in disputes involving construction-defect claims, delay claims, claims by or against architects, claims involving predecessor or successor owners, control and internal-entity disputes, and insurance-coverage issues.
• Developers and owners in tenant improvement disputes.
• Developers and owners in design/build contract disputes.
• General contractors and subcontractors in all aspects of residential and commercial construction matters.
• High-net-worth individuals in construction disputes concerning their personal residences.
• Developers, owners, and general contractors in all aspects of bankruptcy litigation, whether as debtors or creditors.
• Many types of parties, including accounting firms, in disputes involving construction accounting.
• Developers and owners in disputes over large real-estate projects, multi-forum and multi-party litigation and arbitration (including restructuring advice to developers and their construction entities)

In addition to representing general contractors, subcontractors, owners, and developers in a variety of commercial and residential construction matters, Douglas S. Waggaman, one of the firm’s partners, has, for twenty-five years, served as outside general counsel of a San Diego-based general contractor specializing in commercial, institutional, and high-end residential construction and has been a principal in construction and development projects.

The project lease form is the one document at the center of every income property. After the rents, rent adjustments, and other basic deal points, nothing influences success or failure more than the detailed terms of the project lease.

But no lease exists alone. Instead, it stands atop an unseen mountain of drafting conventions, caselaw, and statutes. When problems occur, the outcome depends on how the attorney has navigated that mountain – and how well he or she anticipated problems when the lease was negotiated.

Sooner or later, your lease form will be tried in court, and money will be lost or won. Spach, Capaldi & Waggaman, LLP sees what you don’t.

Our practice focuses on retail, office, warehouse, and industrial leases and extends to ground, build-to-suit, and agricultural leases. On the retail side, we have consummated leases for national fast-food chains, banks, restaurants, and major retailers of every description. Our office leasing practice includes large and medium-sized leases with some of the nation's largest office owners.

On behalf of both landlords and tenants, we negotiate and document sophisticated percentage rent provisions, common-area-maintenance charge allocations, maintenance and repair cost-sharing terms, co-tenancy provisions, indemnities, insurance requirements, subrogation language, build-to-suit terms, work letters, tenant rules and regulations, assignment and subletting conditions, parking requirements, extension and option provisions, guarantees, and others critical terms.

Representative transactions include the following:

• Negotiated and closed a lease for a 30,000 square-foot shopping center space with a national-credit retailer near Sacramento, California.
• Represented several major southern California and international motion-picture production studios in structuring and drafting master-form license and lease instruments for their tenant production companies.
• Negotiated and closed a Class A office lease for a real estate development company with a major commercial office owner in Irvine, California.
• Negotiated and closed a Class A office lease for a financial services company with a major commercial office owner in Newport Beach, California.
• Represented the landlord for a build-to-suit lease for a church in south Orange County, California.
• Planned and drafted master-form retail leases, guarantees, and related documents for a major Southern California shopping center developer and owner.
• Set strategy for and managed and negotiated real estate lease workouts in the bankruptcy of a national fast-food chain.
• Negotiated and closed a Class A office lease for a financial services company with a major national commercial office owner in Santa Ana, California.
• Negotiated and drafted retail, office, and warehouse leases with annual rents in excess $45,000,000, including ground leases and build-to-suit leases.
• Negotiated and closed leases for hundreds of thousands of square feet under various warehouse and industrial leases for a major regional record storage company.
• Negotiated and documented a lease with a major national specialty retailer.

REAL ESTATE AND CONSTRUCTION

• Represented a general contractor in a series of actions brought by and against subcontractors and an owner regarding development of a large real-estate project in California’s Inland Empire.
• Numerous cases representing institutional and non-institutional lenders in bankruptcy plan confirmation and negotiation matters, including challenges based on lack of proper accounting and projections.
• Won a defense judgment in a dispute over a loan secured by a deed of trust. Client was able to take ownership and possession of the real estate at issue and recover a loan to the prior owner that otherwise would have been lost.
• Successful trials and settlements for federal government financial regulators on behalf of a seized real estate-lender in series of complex Chapter 11 and related state court proceedings.
• On the eve of attachment proceedings, successfully defended developer/guarantor from judicial foreclosure action by national bank and subsequently successfully litigated a seven-figure cross-claim for lender liability.
• Won a motion to defeat attachment on all of a guarantor’s assets based on allegations of defects in the loan documentation.

CORPORATE, PROTECTION OF CORPORATE ASSETS, AND TRADE SECRETS

• Won a dismissal of a lawsuit at the demurrer stage in a case alleging that a corporation wrongfully seized shareholder draws.

BUSINESS FRAUD

• Obtained a favorable settlement in a multi-party lawsuit alleging breach of contract, fraud, and conspiracy involving a sale of a telecommunications services company.
• Favorable settlement in a claim against a majority owner by the company’s largest creditor asserting fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and fraudulent conveyance theories.
• Won a $6 million award for negligence in an arbitration against an insurance services company on behalf of a defrauded lender group.
• Obtained a favorable settlement in multi-party lawsuit regarding an ownership dispute over tenant-in-common investment properties.

MEDIA LITIGATION

• Successfully represented one of the nation’s largest billboard operators in a series of land use and First Amendment cases.
• Successfully challenged, on First Amendment grounds, a Los Angeles city ordinance limiting the size and placement of wall-sized signs and murals.
• Successfully challenged California’s outdoor advertising law on First Amendment grounds, leading to a favorable settlement for the client.
• Successfully represented a radio station owner in a multi-forum dispute involving challenges to its license.
• Won in a trial involving cell phone rights representing a telecommunications company against a bankruptcy trustee.
• Successfully represented a video game developer in a contract dispute with its publisher.
• Obtained favorable settlements for one of the nation’s largest billboard operators in a series of eminent domain matters.

ENTITY OWNERSHIP DISPUTE

• Won a judgment in favor of a plaintiff at binding arbitration confirming client’s right to majority ownership and control of a mid-sized metals finishing company.
• Obtained an extremely favorable settlement for the managing partner of a partnership in a multi-forum action where claims of misuse and misappropriation were made by a limited partner group. (Claims involved resolution of claimed construction defects and insurance coverage issues.)
• Won an extremely favorable arbitration award for a business entity in a $3,000,000 claim by one of its founding members.

OTHER LITIGATION

• Won a major judgment in an investment fraud case including more than $500,000 in punitive damages.
• Successfully represented a developer in a fee dispute against an architectural firm resulting in a successful settlement mid-trial.
• Won a judgment of over $10,000,000 against the City of San Clemente to return an unused parking fund to the city’s residents.
• Won in the trial court and at the Court of Appeal on a Special Motion to Strike (Anti-SLAPP motion) to dismiss a complaint filed against an accounting firm that was hired as a court-appointed referee in a partition action.
• Won dismissals and obtained favorable settlements in numerous actions representing employers in trade secret claims against them and newly-hired employees.