Profile

An expert on real estate law including commercial leasing, real estate finance, sales and purchase contracts, and real estate development, Andrew Berman is often interviewed by national press and called upon to be an expert witness and consultant on major litigation cases and commercial transactions. He is the Founding Director of New York Law School’s Center for Real Estate Studies (CRES), one of the leading academic centers devoted to the study of both the private practice and public regulation of real estate. He was also the Founding Director of the Institute for In-House Counsel, one of the first academic institutes to focus on the legal, economic, management, and financial issues affecting in-house counsel.

Immediately following law school, Professor Berman joined Davis Polk & Wardwell as a Corporate/Real Estate Associate and then moved to Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz as a Corporate/Real Estate Associate. In 1995, he joined the Real Estate Group at Sidley Austin LLP and became a partner in 1998.

Professor Berman spent nearly 15 years in private practice prior to joining the NYLS faculty as a full-time professor in 2002. More recently, Professor Berman was a partner at Orrick Herrington’s New York Real Estate Group, and is now Managing Partner of Andrew Berman PLLC—a law firm that focuses on real estate transactions.

In private practice, Professor Berman has represented clients in all aspects of commercial lease transactions (for both landlord and tenants), commercial real estate finance, including complex financing transactions such as mezzanine loans, preferred equity, and financings intended for securitization markets. He also has extensive experience in real estate development projects, and the sale and acquisition of real property and mortgage loan portfolios.

Professor Berman’s scholarship has focused on non-traditional real estate financing techniques and commercial lease transactions. He is now the sole author of Friedman on Leases, which is a three-volume treatise and considered one of the most authoritative texts on the law of commercial leases. Professor Berman is also involved with the American College of Real Estate Lawyers (ACREL) and the American College of Mortgage Attorneys (ACMA) and has been elected as a Fellow for both organizations. Additionally, he regularly organizes and participates in conferences, master classes, CLE events, and other public programs on a wide range of real estate topics.