Welcome to the first newsletter of W.A.R.E., Women Attorneys in Real Estate! While we have been a thriving organization since our inception in early 2016, we are still hard at work to become a powerhouse association for the support and empowerment of Women in Law, most especially through this group for women attorneys in real estate law. So read on, enjoy, and as always, feel free to respond.
Who We Are
Founded and created in 2016, we now have a membership of close to 90 real estate practitioners from the metro NYC area, and hope to double that number by year’s endwith the help of suggestions from all of our members for potential new members who fit our values and guidelines as to expertise, years in real estate practice, and likemindedness as to cooperation and support, providing opportunity, empowering our fellow members and future generations.
We as a group have already seen how we have all benefitted in these past several years through the listserv, through our monthly meetings and speakers, our provision of free CLE credits, and through working together to grow this association.
We are now a certified provider of CLE credits for attorneys. In the fall of 2018 we hope to have our interactive, resource-laden website up and running.
Our Mentoring Program has begun with two expert attorneys guiding those without real estate experience to learn and gain the expertise we are all privileged to share.
By this fall we expect to officially be a 501(c)(6) organization with a Board of Directors and various functioning committees.
WARE’s current volunteer board, serving through February 2020 consists of:
- Fern Mehler, President
- Kathy Frandy, Vice President
- Esen Edip, Treasurer
- Diane E. Ungar, Secretary
Upcoming Meetings
Unless otherwise noted, meetings are the second Tuesday of each month, 6-8 pm at Wells Fargo, 125 E 42 St, New York, NY.
- Tues, July 10 – Member Roundtable
- Tues, Sept 25 – W.A.R.E. Member Meeting, Year in Review: Visions and Mission (new roundtable discussions)
- Thurs, Oct 18 – FinCen Rules & Reporting Requirements for HighEnd Properties, Fern Mehler. CLE.
- Tues, Nov 13 – Stress Mgmt. & Mindfulness, Jon Krop. CLE.
WARE Committees
As you know, we have formed Committees to help us grow and succeed as an organization. We urge each member of W.A.R.E. to participate in our Committees, to engage, add your voice, and to help make W.A.R.E. succeed and be more fully your own organization.
We encourage each of you to volunteer for a Committee whether as Chair or member, to enrich our organization; each committee could use at least 2 members. Our Speakers Committee will be needing a new chair by January 2019.
Feel free to contact current chairpersons directly for any group you’re interested in.
Current W.A.R.E. Committees & Chairs:
- EXECUTIVE COMM – Board of Directors
- GOVERNANCE – Proskauer pro bono (incorporation, etc)
- MEMBERSHIP – Karen Schleimer
- SPEAKERS/EVENTS – Randi Plevy
- MENTORING – Fern Mehler
- SPONSORSHIP – Kathy Frandy
- RESOURCES/TECH – Pamela Walker
- COMMUNICATIONS – Diane Ungar
- LIFE-WORK BALANCE – Derin Edip
- PUBLIC RELATIONS – Esen Edip
The goals of each Committee, in summary, are as follows:
- Exec. Committee – to oversee the organization and memorialize norms.
- Governance – to get us incorporated and up and running with our by-laws, etc.
- Membership – to seek out new members, vet and approve them.
- Speakers/Events – to provide us with our monthly (or quarterly) speakers for our meetings or on topics upon request.
- Sponsorship – to seek and encourage sponsors for our organization and activities.
- Mentoring – to develop a program for mentors and mentees in becoming competent real estate attorneys and/or solo practitioners.
- Communications – to provide all written materials of WARE including liaisons with the Sunday Times Real Estate section, the Cooperator, and similar entities.
- Resources/Tech – to develop an online Resource Well or repository of tech sites and all referrals made by W.A.R.E. listserv members.
- Life-Work Balance – to provide resources to enhance our personal selves and family lives while also working, to provide back-up for solos and others, and to provide other outlets for balance.
- P.R. – to connect with Real Deal and other news/trade publications to spread the word about WARE and our activities.
Dues
As you’ve likely noticed, we have operated without any dues for the past two and one half years, since our inception. But as a growing organization we have financial needs to meet to pay various costs and expenses. Thus, effective as of September 1, 2018, a pro-rated quarterly annual fee of $50 for membership in WARE will be payable as dues through the end of 2018.
Starting effective as of January O 1, 2019, the annual dues will be $200 per member. We will send out a separate announcement on this before summer’s end. We also look forward to your thoughts on this and to answering any questions about this or other topics at our next upcoming member roundtables.
WARE Mentoring Program
You may have noticed that Fem Mehler, as chair of our Mentoring Program, recently reached out on our listserv for mentors to educate new associate members who are new to the practice of real estate law as their primary focus.
Two members responded and the W.A.R.E. Mentoring Program is now off to its new start!
The Mentoring Program is aimed at helping new attorneys with an interest in practicing real estate law or, for attorneys changing focus or careers into real estate practice. The goal is to provide a service to educate future generations of real estate attorneys and W.A.R.E. members.
Our two current mentors are Ann Tyson and Derin Edip. The commitment is for one year and we hope to be hearing reports quarterly as to how things are progressing in this new program.
Ann says “I have spent many years in large NYC firms and am now solo. I have always been a go-to person for new associates. I look forward to showing our new intern Rebecca the workings of my real estate practice.”
We look forward to hearing more from both Ann and from Derin, and possibly from the mentees-intems as well, and establishing guidelines and protocols for this program.
Growing Our Membership!
While we want to maintain an intimacy in our size, there is also greater knowledge and strength in numbers. And so, we ask each member to PLEASE SUBMIT THE NAME and CONTACT INFORMATION FOR AT LEAST ONE COLLEAGUE (or 2!), whom you regard as expert in (an area of) real estate law and who would be a good fit in and an asset to W.A.R.E.
If approved, these new members could serve to nearly double our present membership! We are WARE’s most valuable resource, and your referral of further like-minded members is our second greatest resource! Please contact us with new names.
You can present names & contact information either 1) directly to Karen Schleimer or Esen Edip, or 2) request a membership application form directly from Esen (esen@titlesofnewyork.com) or from Karen (kbshcleimer@gmail.com) and then ask your colleague yourself, with the attachment, to submit their completed form to either of Esen or Karen.
TECH TIPS from PAM!
If you don’t already know Pamela Walker, chair of our Resources & Technology committee, know that we are lucky to have her knowledge and expertise in on-line resources we can each add to our internet repertoires, to save time andto add value in working with our clients.
For our incipient website which we hope to have up and running sometime this fall, Pam will have a link to a Resource Center. The Resource Center will list various tools, as well as categorize the many referrals we’ve shared on the listserv -from payoff banks to best attorneys, appraisers, expeditors, etc.
For this first column, Pam suggests that you become familiar with the online resource of NYCMaps.com.
To use, first Google NYC Maps. Then go to: maps.nyc.gov/doitt/nycitymap/
- Click on the link;
- Type in the address of the property;
- Click search.
From this page (scroll down right side of page) you can easily navigate to NYC Buildings Department, HPD and ACRIS as well as to many other key sites.
Useful information from this page: block and lot number, name of owner, lot size, number of buildings on the lot, number of units, number of floors.
Links to ECB violations, HPD complaints, building permits, job numbers and certificate of occupancy all are available from this site.
Find the polling site, police precinct, schools, DOHMH rat inspection data, sanitation collection schedule and more.
Check out the digital tax map: summary, history, historical alterations and the user guide.
Give Pam a call if you’d like a quick tutorial.
Thanks to Our Sponsors!
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to our generous first sponsor TITLES of NEW YORK and our founder, Esen Edip, and also to our current generous sponsor WELLS FARGO, represented by our friend and colleague Janet Younkman.
Janet now provides the space and imbibements/feasts for our meetings, as Esen had done in our first two years, each of them thereby promoting our social connections while we’ve continued to learn. Our heartfelt gratitude to you both!
Letters to the Editor
We want to hear from you! To respond to anything in this newsletter or provide a potential submission for our next issue, contact the editor (at DianeUngarLaw@gmail.com).
Member Profile
ROBIN A. LEWIS, ESQ.
Each quarter, WARE’s Newsletter will profile a member or two of our organization to introduce us all to one another and to our various expertises and backgrounds.
This month we are pleased to highlight Robin A. Lewis, a highly experienced real estate attorney who has been with W.A.R.E. since its inception.
Robin Lewis sets the bar high in her practice of law and in all that she does. For decades now, her law practice has focused on residential and commercial real estate litigation, including landlord-tenant, coop and condo issues and all other areas of real estate transactional and leasing law, servicing a diverse, international clientele. As a real estate litigator, she has been both witness to and participant in the NYC Housing Court from its early days.
A native New Yorker and a long-standing Manhattan resident, Robin has an infectious, upbeat personality, an indomitable spirit and a pragmatic sensibility which she brings to her work and avocations. She practices law with a heart, and with an abundance of skill, ethics and common sense. This is evident not only in her day to day law practice but, also, in pro bono work such as her volunteer work during Hurricane Sandy when she assisted distressed landlords and tenants with critical housing issues during a difficult period in New York history.
In contrast to her urban life and involvement in real estate development in New York, Robin has been a part-time resident of Telluride, Colorado, where she is also admitted to practice law, for over 25 years. Through her involvement in the Telluride community, Robin developed a deep appreciation for wilderness areas and is committed to their preservation. Her love affair with the U.S. National Park system led her to develop her own tour company out of Telluride trying to “instill in urban folk the importance of preserving wilderness,” about which she is passionate. A world traveler, Robin is also an avid skier, athlete and committed to fitness and healthy living.
In addition to her law practice, Robin has been engaged as a consultant in resort development in Florida, the Caribbean and Colorado. For several years, she has provided services to a successful hotel development and management company based in Orlando, Florida, consulting on property acquisitions, corporate growth and development.
In her professional life, Robin is a force to be reckoned with. Complex and difficult legal challenges do not faze her; to the contrary all her clients from the neediest to her celebrity clientele have benefitted from her expertise, her good will and perseverance, as have her colleagues. We are truly fortunate to have Robin as a valued member of WARE.
Robin’s firm concentrates in residential and commercial real estate litigation and landlordtenant issues including holdover, nuisance and non-primary residence proceedings, co-op and condo issues, transactional real estate and leasing. She litigates real property disputes, leasehold issues and breach of contract. She also negotiates buy-outs of rent control and rent stabilized tenants for both tenants and landlords, many well publicized and for substantial sums. * She represents landlords and tenants before DHCR and handles disputes before the American Arbitration Association regarding property damage, leasehold issues and international commerce.
To read about Robin’s Sutton Place buy-out client Jack Lesko, see NY Times Aug. 18, 2015, Sunday R.E. Section (http://nyti.ms/1Mwlk8Q). To read the NY Times Real Estate Q & A column from February 2018, click on or copy this link: https://nyti.ms/2BQ1VCO or just turn the page.
WARE Mission Statement
WARE was created as a peer group for advanced attorneys with expertise in real estate law in the NYC metropolitan area. The mission of WARE is to provide valuable resources for these women and to provide opportunities, support, collaboration, and empowerment to generate work, solve issues, to help its members prosper, and to empower its members in work and in life. WARE also seeks to support the next generations of real estate law practitioners by providing an associate membership level and by mentoring these women to develop their own real estate expertise and, should they wish, to help them acquire the knowledge they need to open and successfully run their own law practices.
WARE Membership Criteria & WARE Statement of Values
- Demonstrated Expertise of 10-15 years or more in the practice of real estate law;
- Located and licensed/practicing within the NY Metro Area; Excellence in quality of law practiced, as recognized by peers;
- Excellence in quality of law practiced, as recognized by peers;
- Approval of two senior sponsors who are members in W.A.R.E.;
- Adherence to WARE’s core values;
- Payment of $200 Annual Dues Fee;
- Demonstrated on-going commitment to quality of law practice and to values of cooperation within the W.A.R.E. community;
- Commitment to Core Values of WARE: Excellence in Practice, Integrity, Empowerment & Support, Commitment to Best Practices, Keen Interest in Learning & Mentoring, Commitment to the growth of fellow members, especially of our smaller firms and solo practitioners who comprise over 2/3 of our membership.
WARE Membership Statement
The women of WARE are an exceptional group with years of expertise in the practice of real estate law. Becoming a member requires being sponsored by at least two of our senior-level real estate practitionermembers and requires that the new member also practice real estate law as a substantial area of their practice and expertise.
While the group provides networking for and among its members, W.A.R.E. looks with disfavor upon any member using WARE, its listserv, and its other resources for purposes of networking for their (non-solo) firm members or for outside non-member referrals, except as may occasionally be needed to fully respond to a member’s question.
We believe that WARE exemplifies a model of opportunity and cooperation unrivaled by any similar group that we know of and one which seeks to provide support and balance in our work and personal lives.
