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This is a question for real estate lawyers. How does practicing transaction real estate law provide an attorney exposure to the local market, players and transactions? And how does this knowledge, network, and understanding of the 'real estate game' supporting breaking into the business of real estate after a few years of practice?

I'll take a bite since I work in RE.

It's pretty self-explanatory. If you're representing players in the real estate market, you're going to get to know them pretty well. There are a handful of huge players in NYC that regularly do deals that everyone knows. But there's also a lot of smaller players that still do millions in deals every year. The problem with RE (at least in NYC) is that it's a very tight-knit group. AFAIK, it's very hard to grab new clients because most are already spoken for.

As far as breaking out into the business side... I guess you could go in-house at a management or development co. But idk if practicing RE law makes one qualified to do the business side.

Yeah this ^.
You get to know people in it so that would help with learning about future opportunities.

But are you talking about making your own deals? The real thing you need is having the financials, not real estate experience. If I were to invest right now I wouldn't need a few years of practice, but I'll know more people who may be willing to work with me then as we've developed a relationship (in theory anyway, ymmv). Our clients are always running new deals so it wouldn't be hard to ask if you could get in on one as long as all ethical requirements are met. I suppose you could also become more familiar with what a "good" deal is with more time if you are saying you have no real experience currently.

I recently learned that real estate lawyers are referred to and refer to themselves as "Dirt Lawyers." I kind of like it and it makes sense.

http://www.scbar.org/cvwebr/cgi-bin/msa ... ductcd=722

viz-luv wrote:Yeah this ^.
You get to know people in it so that would help with learning about future opportunities.

But are you talking about making your own deals? The real thing you need is having the financials, not real estate experience. If I were to invest right now I wouldn't need a few years of practice, but I'll know more people who may be willing to work with me then as we've developed a relationship (in theory anyway, ymmv). Our clients are always running new deals so it wouldn't be hard to ask if you could get in on one as long as all ethical requirements are met. I suppose you could also become more familiar with what a "good" deal is with more time if you are saying you have no real experience currently.

TCR

First of all you need to understand something about investing. You might have a leg up in terms of advising REITs or similar investing vehicles on their own operations w/r/t regulatory requirements and the like but that's about all you really bring to the table as an RE lawyer. If you don't have an accounting/finance background you're useless.

Second of all you need to understand something about investing in RE specifically, because it is a specialized asset class within the alt investments space.

Third of all you need to be able to distinguish yourself from the other lawyers out there in literally every other transactional practice group who are trying to move to some business type role. Your having worked with RE clients helps, but you're still just as dumb on every other axis.

In short, if you want to go into the business side, go to business school. If you want to be a lawyer, go to law school. It's pretty simple.

viz-luv wrote:But are you talking about making your own deals? The real thing you need is having the financials, not real estate experience. If I were to invest right now I wouldn't need a few years of practice, but I'll know more people who may be willing to work with me then as we've developed a relationship (in theory anyway, ymmv). Our clients are always running new deals so it wouldn't be hard to ask if you could get in on one as long as all ethical requirements are met. I suppose you could also become more familiar with what a "good" deal is with more time if you are saying you have no real experience currently.

Short answer: Have millions of dollars lying around.

1styearlateral wrote: Short answer: Have millions of dollars lying around.

Yeah, but I was trying to give him/her hope

viz-luv wrote:

1styearlateral wrote: Short answer: Have millions of dollars lying around.

Yeah, but I was trying to give him/her hope

Ha. Real estate investment is really reserved for the mega wealthy.

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Bump. I have some related questions (see below), but didn’t want to start a new thread. Any and all responses would be very much appreciated.

Background:
I’m a mid-level associate in a top real estate group in NYC. We primarily work on acquisitions/dispositions, financings and joint ventures for all types of clients. I have an undergraduate business degree and would strongly prefer to move to the business side, which, to my knowledge, is something that none of my former colleagues have done. I’ve applied to a number of mid-level business/non-analyst positions on LinkedIn but the applications have all gone unanswered. I thought non-analyst positions would be a better fit, as it seems that excel skills become less important, and general soft skills become more important, as one moves higher up on the business side. In any event, I’m not willing to start over with an analyst position paying less than six figures, which I could’ve had straight out of college.

Questions:
1. Does anyone have suggestions on how I can make the real estate legal -> real estate business move or anecdotes about they made a similar move (other than via personal real estate investing)?
2. What types of positions should I be targeting?
3. What type of company should I be targeting? Big/small PE shops, financial institutions, pension funds, developers and/or big brokerages?
4. Has anyone privately discussed this possibility with a client in hopes that they might be able to help or offer suggestions? Obviously there would have to be a certain level of trust to broach the topic.
5. Is there a reasonably feasible path without connections and serious networking?

Thanks very much in advance.