Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP

Real Estate Litigation

Sometimes Disputes Are Part of the Deal in Real Estate
Litigation—whether it involves purchase and sales contracts, partnership disputes, claims involving breach of fiduciary duty, commercial leases, property insurance, property tax assessments, design and construction defects or boundaries—is part of the real estate landscape. Typically beginning with a transaction of some sort, many factors, including land use, regulatory issues, capital and financing, then lead to situations requiring litigation. The complexities and financial risks involved require experienced professionals who understand sophisticated deal, financing, and ownership structures, as well as the unique rules and regulations that apply to real estate to help clients achieve the most favorable outcomes. 

A Multidisciplinary Approach
Manatt harnesses the power of our leading Real Estate and Land Use practices—as well as the firm’s top lawyers in diverse and related fields—to provide clients with seamlessly integrated counsel whenever the need arises. Real estate litigation is a true subject matter practice, where we bring to bear our know-how in many different disciplines in resolving disputes. 

Our experienced litigators have worked on a wide range of real estate-related issues, including eminent domain, inverse condemnation, land use, construction defects, complex leases, owner and partnership disputes, commercial evictions, homeowner conflicts, environmental regulation, title insurance, zoning, planning, foreclosure, bankruptcy, real estate fraud, property damage, landlord/tenant issues, and commercial insurance coverage. 

Tough When Tough Is Called For
Our attorneys are tough, demanding and outcome-oriented. We understand that our approach reflects as much on our client’s business as it does on us. By starting with a goal of achieving win-win solutions, we embody our client’s business philosophy. And rest assured, when a tougher stance is required, we do tough as well as any firm. We know how and when to turn up the heat, often leading to effective resolutions. 

Additionally, the current economic climate has had a tremendously negative impact on the real estate industry, lenders and developers. During this difficult time, our team works closely with Manatt’s financial services and corporate lawyers to help banks get distressed assets off their books. When an existing development implodes, we can simultaneously manage all the real estate issues involved as well as construction disputes with laid-off contractors and unions, the environmental impact of the unfinished property, bankruptcy proceedings, insurance claims and investor payouts. 

Covering the Full Spectrum
With our broad scope of experience, we can assemble a team to suit the specific needs and achieve the unique goals of our clients. The matters we have handled for clients are as varied as the properties, developments, transactions, and financings that make up the field of real estate. The common ground is that for all of our clients, we focus on an effective strategy that often means moving more capital into a project, limiting losses on a distressed project, or collecting what is owed to our client. Drawing upon the legal talents and litigation experience of our lawyers, we create the most effective and efficient strategies for successfully resolving real estate-related conflicts in the following areas: 

• Representation of Lenders. We represent numerous banks and lenders, especially in California. These range from regional banks to large multinationals with portfolio assets. These often involve complex lender, guarantor, and title issues. We deal with a wide array of distressed assets and are syndicators of low-income tax credits as well. For example, we secured summary judgment on behalf of Central Pacific Bank in a complex stop notice case involving a failed residential development in Sacramento. The case involved whether the stop notice was timely under a statutory deadline and the result was a set of highly complex factual and legal issues, including statutory interpretation and potentially conflicting case law. 
• Bankruptcy & Financial Restructuring. Manatt has advised lenders, investors and borrowers on litigation involving problem loans as well as pre- and post-bankruptcy matters, including foreclosure, lien enforcement proceedings and fraudulent conveyances. 
• Construction Disputes. When disputes arise between contractors, subcontractors, and public and private owners regarding construction, public works, infrastructure and transportation projects, our litigators work to bring them to a successful resolution. 
• Environmental & Toxic Torts. We have counseled plaintiffs and defendants in numerous environmental contamination cases involving the disposal of hazardous waste, cleanup of contaminated properties, cost allocation, toxic torts, eminent domain actions, on-site and off-site disposal practices, and potential liability to or from adjacent property owners. 
• Land Use. We have successfully litigated land use disputes involving many large, high profile commercial and residential projects. We advise clients in regard to the full range of land use, planning, zoning and environmental matters affecting real property development.
  • In Yamagiwa v. City of Half Moon Bay, our land use and environmental litigators proved to the court that wetlands were caused by trapped water from a storm drain improperly built by the city itself. After we secured a jury verdict of $36.8 million, we settled the case for $18 million because payment of the full judgment would have bankrupted the city. 
  • On behalf of an international retail chain, after a successful outcome at trial, we successfully negotiated the settlement of six additional cases alleging violations of the California Environmental Quality Act, allowing the client to begin construction of the stores years earlier than would have otherwise been permitted.
  • We prevailed in a lawsuit alleging violations of CEQA and California zoning and planning laws on behalf of our client, the real party in interest, in connection with a proposed major retail chain store in the City of Lancaster.

  • We prevailed in a summary judgment motion against the State of Nevada invalidating a statute that effectively prohibited development of 2,400 acres. We then negotiated a settlement with Clark County that sets the framework for approval of a master-planned development of the site.

• Eminent Domain. We have extensive experience at both the trial and appellate levels in the litigation of eminent domain cases. On behalf of our clients, we have evaluated the public purpose for the forced acquisition of private property and taken appropriate steps to ensure adequate, just landowner compensation. We have also helped governments acquire property within reasonable budgets for large infrastructure, utility and redevelopment projects. We have represented property owners in numerous landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, including:
  • Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, 535 U.S. 302 (whether a land use moratorium is a taking of property must be decided on a case-by-case basis)
  • City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687 (right to Seventh Amendment jury trial and Fifth Amendment compensation for regulatory taking)
  • Preseault v. ICC, 494 U.S. 1 (federal “rails-to-trails” statute is valid under the Commerce Clause; however, compensation may be sought in the Claims Court under the Just Compensation Guarantee)
  • First English Evangelical Lutheran Church v. County of Los Angeles, 482 U.S. 304 (1987) (Constitution requires just compensation for regulatory taking of property)
  • Agins v. City of Tiburon, 447 U.S. 255 (ripeness rules for regulatory taking cases)
  • Orange County Transportation Authority v. OC Mills (litigation against OCTA for acquiring parking lot and a mall’s lost revenue)

Diversity at Manatt

Manatt considers diversity to be a fundamental component of our institutional identity. As a law firm, we have a professional responsibility, and as individuals, we have a personal responsibility to our respective communities. Incorporating diversity into our culture allows us to enhance the high-quality, creativity and excellence in legal services that our clients have come to expect.

Manatt has invested a significant amount of human and financial resources in our own diversity program. Our philosophy is simple: include women and minority lawyers at all levels of Firm leadership and promote diversity in the legal profession through our support and active involvement in various minority civic and bar organizations.

The mix of our minority and women attorneys has consistently exceeded the national average among the country's top law firms. Our talented mix includes minority and women lawyers serving as heads of offices, members of the firm's Board of Directors and management team, and chairs of some of the firm's most important practice groups.

Inclusive Culture
Our progressive culture allows us to maintain a growing mix of women and minority lawyers, and the results illustrate this commitment.  The American Lawyer ranked our Firm 29th (in the top 12%) on its Diversity Scorecard for the largest 250 law firms in the country for 2009.  Multi Cultural Law Magazine included our Firm on its 2008 lists of the Top 100 Law Firms for Diversity, Top 25 Law Firms for Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders, and Top 25 Law Firms for Openly Gay/Lesbian Americans.

Despite our progress and diversity success, we can do better.  Our challenge extends far beyond exceeding national averages.  Our plan cannot succeed if we focus only on recruiting minority and women attorneys.  The true challenge and measure for achieving success lies in creating and preserving an inclusive environment where our minority and women lawyers will stay, progress, prosper and succeed.  We have implemented a formal diversity program designed to enhance our recruiting and retention of diverse attorneys through an executive mentoring program intended to cultivate personally and professionally meaningful relationships between our diverse lawyers and our partners. 

Our commitment to diversity exists in a living document – a plan – that is concrete, easy to understand and publicly available.  The plan demonstrates to every law school student, lateral associate candidate, lateral partner candidate, recruiter, existing client, and potential client that we are serious about creating a workplace that mirrors the breadth of the communities where we and our clients live and work.

We focus on the following key areas to accomplish our mission.

Targeted Recruitment Effort
At Manatt, recruiting women and minority attorneys does not end on law school campuses. Our recruiting efforts focus on locating talented women and minority lawyers at all levels. At law schools, we seek out and interview students who share our core values in ways shaped and enhanced by their own experience. Manatt's 2005 Summer Program was the most diverse in the Firm's history. Our nine 2005 Summer Associates included two African-American students, three Hispanic students, one Asian-American student and three Caucasian students. Five of these nine students were women.

Mentoring as a Cornerstone
Minority attorneys who join Manatt as new or lateral hires immediately become the focus of a mentoring program. They are paired with senior attorneys who take an active role in encouraging their career development. Mentors actively work with their protégés, helping them form business plans and involving them in firm-wide marketing and development opportunities. Management holds mentors accountable for their roles and their protégés' progress at the Firm, including reviewing their efforts as part of the evaluation and compensation process.

Access to Opportunity
Success is a matter of talent and opportunity. At Manatt, we believe that the key to retaining talented minority attorneys -- and therefore the key to the success of our diversity efforts -- is providing a distinctive experience that offers clear access to professional accomplishment. We provide women and minority attorneys with important responsibilities and leadership opportunities in client development activities, complex litigation, large transactional matters and high-profile community and civic organizations. We also encourage and support minority and women attorneys who take leadership positions within the firm and outside in the community at large.

Long-Term Commitment
We challenge ourselves to make our young lawyers feel valued, involved and invested in the future of the firm. We know that they will eventually occupy the most important financial, management and executive positions at Manatt. Our professionals thrive in an atmosphere that encourages and supports responsibility, ambition, and entrepreneurship. We offer true opportunity equal to individual commitment to success and advancement. That's the history of opportunity at Manatt, where professionals with talent and drive are rewarded with a nurturing, dynamic and energizing climate.

Promoting Diversity
Promoting diversity in the legal profession requires both an investment of money and time. Our women and minority attorneys are prominently involved and hold leadership positions in some of the most important minority civic and bar organizations in the country including:

• Asian Americans of Equality
• Asian Pacific American Legal Center
• Black Entertainment and Sports Lawyers Association
• California Association of Black Lawyers
• California Black Chamber of Commerce
• California Women's Law Center
• Chilean Association of Attorneys
• D.C. Commission on Asian & Pacific Islander Affairs
• Hispanic National Bar Association
• Inner City Law Center
• International Human Rights Committee of the Association of the Bar of City of New York
• Korean American Bar Association
• Korean American Coalition
• L.A. Conservation Corps
• La Raza Galeria Posada
• Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
• Los Angeles Urban League
• National Asian Pacific American Bar Association
• NOW Legal Defense & Education Fund Board
• Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association
• The Association of Women in International Trade
• Women Lawyers Association
• Women's Bar Association of District of Columbia
• Women's Forum of Washington D.C.