Practice Areas & Industries: Holland & Hart LLP

Practice/Industry Group Overview

For more than 40 years Holland & Hart has been providing resort, hospitality and leisure-business clients with the results-oriented legal counsel and innovative business solutions they need to grow and succeed in this tourism economy. Whether you are planning a mixed-use resort development, operating an urban boutique hotel, or renegotiating lending and management agreements for a resort property, Holland & Hart has the experience and legal expertise to assist you at every stage of the business life cycle.

With offices in Aspen, Colorado, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and Salt Lake City, Utah, Holland & Hart has long been involved in ski area and golf course development projects. Our attorneys are knowledgeable, not only about the unique regulations and codes that affect development projects in mountain resort towns, but - because they regularly appear before those towns' local planning and zoning commissions - they can also offer valuable insight into the unwritten policies, procedures and inclinations of decision makers that often influence the outcome of a particular development issue.

Our Resort, Lodging & Leisure Industry Group is comprised of industry specialists in the areas of law most important to the hospitality and tourism industry:

• Commercial Real Estate & Resort Development
• Zoning & Entitlements
• Project Construction & Design Contracts
• Resort Financing & Receivables Financing
• Lease & Use Agreements
• Ski Area Representation
• Hotel Management & Operations Issues
• Vacation & Fractional Ownership & Condominium Development
• Taxation, Conservation Easements & Tax Credits
• State & Federal Regulatory Permitting & Compliance - Environmental & Forest Service
• Labor, Employment & Employee Benefits
• Immigration
• Intellectual Property
• Gaming
• Water Rights & Wetlands
• Natural Resources & Minerals
• Indian Law

Because legal issues facing the resort and hospitality industry go beyond land acquisition and bricks-and-mortar issues, we offer a multi-disciplinary approach to the industry's most challenging legal problems. Linked by state-of-the-art communications systems, a real estate attorney working in our Aspen office on your ski area base development can tap the expertise of one of our Denver environmental attorneys for a quick solution to a wastewater permitting issue. Or one of our business lawyers in Boise, who is counseling you on the sale of a hotel property, can contact our Boulder attorneys for practical advice on handling employee layoffs and compliance with the WARN Act. The end result is seamless and coordinated legal services that are delivered in the most efficient, responsive and cost-effective manner possible.

Services Available

Resort Development & Acquisition
Holland & Hart's representation of real estate owners, developers and investors includes the acquisition, development, construction, leasing and disposition of resort and hotel properties. We assist our clients in conducting due diligence, drafting and negotiating real estate purchase and sale documents, preparing project documents, and negotiating with local government authorities on zoning, annexation and permitting issues. We have created fractional interest projects and are able to assist with registration of timeshare projects in a number of states.

Financing
The firm represents both lenders and borrowers in all aspects of resort and hotel financing, including real estate acquisition, construction, and receivables financing, working capital loans, as well as permanent financing.

Our past representation of regional and national lending institutions, as well as our contacts in the financial community, often enable us to assist clients in obtaining financing for their projects.

Resort Construction
Holland & Hart's construction law practice is second to none in the Mountain West Region. The firm regularly counsels owners, developers and builders of hotel and resort projects on a wide range of construction matters, including negotiation of general contractor and construction management agreements, sub contracts, design/build agreements, and architect and engineering contracts. Several of our attorneys are engineers who bring to the table substantial construction project experience. This "real-world" experience and training gives us an edge in handling construction delay and impact claims, as well as in litigating construction defect disputes.

Resort Development & Regulatory Issues
Holland & Hart's environmental attorneys assist resort and hospitality clients in their environmental compliance obligations, including wastewater and storm water permitting, obtaining approval for wetlands development, and providing environmental assessments, audits, and due diligence investigation for real estate development projects. We are oriented towards "proactive" environmental law, using sensible environmental compliance measures to prevent problems from occurring. We have significant experience in state and federal public land development involving the Forest Service and the BLM. We also have significant experience in Indian law and treaty reserved gaming. If problems do occur, our team includes trial attorneys who have substantial experience successfully defending companies against government enforcement actions and in other types of environmental litigation.

We regularly assist clients with all aspects of evaluating and developing legal water supplies for new and existing resort developments. We represent our clients across the Mountain West Region in the various state administrative and water court proceedings required to obtain necessary permits and water rights. We are experienced in adjudicating all types of water rights matters, including changes of use (from agricultural use to domestic/golf course irrigation, for example), and complex plans of augmentation. We litigate in state and federal courts to protect the quantity and quality of our client's water supplies. More detailed information concerning our water rights expertise is available on our water rights website, www.westernwaterlaw.com

Hospitality Resort Operations
Holland & Hart represents hotel companies, owners and management companies in negotiating and drafting agreements and contracts critical to their operations, including franchise/license agreements, management agreements, and hotel supply and services contracts. We are also able to assist hotels and restaurants in obtaining and transferring state liquor licenses and in complying with licensed beverage laws.

Tax
Our tax attorneys have successfully created tax incentives for resort developments through conservation easements. We have represented several hotels in property tax assessment cases and advised clients on special sales tax rules applicable to the lodging industry. Our work in this area includes assisting clients in the negotiation and documentation of tax incentive arrangements, planning for the state and local tax consequences of proposed transactions, negotiation of state and local tax disputes, and defending companies in state and local tax litigation at all levels.

Hospitality Labor & Employment
Hotels and resorts cannot succeed without positive employee relations. Recognizing this simple fact, our attorneys work closely with our hospitality and leisure clients to develop personnel policies and practices and to design compensation and benefits plans that enhance labor and employment relationships. We provide counsel on federal and state equal employment opportunity issues, wage and hour laws, and hiring, discipline and discharge matters. We also train hotels and allied sectors of the hospitatlity industry on cutting-edge strategies to avoid union organizing activities. And to ensure that your hotel or resort is staffed with quality personnel, our corporate immigration practice can assist you in obtaining work authorizations and visas for hiring workers from abroad.

While our focus is on providing practical counsel to avoid employment-related lawsuits, when litigation does arise, our labor and employment attorneys are skilled trial lawyers with successful tract records defending management in federal and state courts, before regulatory agencies, in arbitrations, and before the National Labor Relations Board. Our success in the courtroom is the reason for our reputation as the top management-side law firm in the Mountain West Region.

Trademarks & Licensing
Holland & Hart can assist hotel companies in protecting their valuable intellectual property portfolios. Our intellectual property clients include regional and national clients, who look to us for counsel on evaluating, registering and licensing their trademarks, logos and copyrights. When litigation over intellectual property develops, our litigation team moves quickly to prosecute and obtain injunctive and monetary relief against infringers.

Workout and Loan Restructuring
We represent property owners in managing troubled assets by assisting them with loan restructuring and workouts, foreclosures, deeds-in-lieu of foreclosures, and alternate financing options. Our experience in this area was honed as members of the select RTC-FDIC Settlement/Workout Asset Team (SWAT), which was charged with reponsibility of recovering several billion dollars of troubled assets.