Admissions

California

Education          

  Chris graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a double major in history and political science and from the University of San Francisco School of Law, where he was a member of the Law Review

Memberships

Chris served on the board of Habitat for Humanity East Bay for 8 years and continues to provide pro bono legal assistance to Habitat for Humanity.

Chris has been voted a “Super Lawyer” in the Law and Politics magazine survey.

Chris has negotiated billions of dollars in acquisitions, loans and leases.  Chris began his legal career in 1993 working for a San Francisco law firm that was general counsel to a major bank. He represented the bank and other financial institutions in a wide variety of real estate lending matters, including loan workouts, foreclosures, bankruptcies, receiverships and the management and disposition of REO properties.  For the past twenty-five years, Chris has represented developers, landlords, tenants, lenders, receivers and high net-worth individuals in numerous complex transactions, including:

• Represented investor in the acquisition and financing of retail stores from financially distressed retailer in four states involving purchase of sites, formation of project specific limited liability companies, and the negotiation and documentation of nearly $100 million dollars in financing for the project.

•   Represented multifamily investors in over 100 acquisitions, dispositions and financings with a total value in excess of $1 billion dollars.

•   Represented investor in acquisition of corporate headquarters of Fortune 500 company in sale/leaseback transaction from the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy estate.

• Represented publicly-traded self-storage company in the acquisition of public and private property for the construction of several self-storage facilities, including the negotiation of a disposition and development agreement for the public property, with a total aggregate purchase price in excess of $100 million dollars.

• Represented REIT in acquisition and dispositions of 8 shopping centers with a total aggregate purchase price in excess of $80 million dollars.

•   Represented borrowers in billions of dollars of loan transactions, including loans for office, retail, mixed-use, industrial, land development, multifamily and mobile home projects.

• Represented opportunistic investor in acquisition of properties formerly valued in excess of $100 million dollars from distressed seller and negotiated short sale with the lender.

• Represented publicly traded builder in the formation of joint venture for the acquisition and development of over 2,000 homesites and condominium parcel for 500 condominiums in transactions exceeding $350 million dollars in Northern California.

• Represented publicly traded builder in the negotiation of nearly $1 billion dollars in construction and mezzanine financing for ten joint ventures.

• Represented of three developers in negotiation of development agreement with the City of Oakley and related infrastructure improvement agreements for the construction of 655 housing units.

• Represented home builder in the acquisition of seven adjacent sites for the development of several hundred single-family homes as well as multi-family and commercial uses and negotiated development agreement for the project.

• Represented lender in the bulk sale of $300 million in nonperforming loans and REO properties.

• Represented lenders in billions of dollars of syndicated loans.

• Represented lender in workout of defaulted $180 million dollar loan for residential development.

• Represented receiver in partially-completed urban mixed-use project with a loan default of $108 million dollars.

• Represented receiver in the negotiation and sale of partially completed retail center.

In response to the credit crisis, Chris was asked to join the California Building Industry Association’s Acquisition, Development and Construction Mortgage Task Force, which lobbied in Washington D.C. and Sacramento on behalf of the building industry. Chris frequently writes and speaks on matters related to the financial crisis and has been part of panel discussions on the topic before the California Building Industry Association, the Home Builders Association, Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW), and the San Francisco Registry and has been quoted in local, national and international media.