This year, I have presented at two continuing legal educations events sponsored by the American Bar Association Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law (RPTE). The first was an “eCLE” on selected issues in negotiation of hotel management and franchise agreements. For this first presentation, I shared the virtual “stage” (it was a webinar) with Tara Gorman and David Oppenheim, both shareholders at Greenberg Traurig. We structured the presentation around non-exhaustive lists of issues that frequently receive a lot of attention in negotiation of these contracts. David focused on issues in franchise agreements and I focused on issues in management agreements. Tara spoke on related issues in negotiations with third parties, notably within subordination agreements.
I covered much of the same ground in a panel discussion at the RPTE’s Spring Symposia this May, in Chicago. This discussion covered a broader range of issues within mixed use developments that include hotels. My contribution was on hotel-related contracts within this context.
This fall, I will be co-authoring, with Nancy Haggerty of Michael, Best & Friedrich LLP, an article for the ABA’s Probate & Property magazine on “demystifying” the “web” of contracts negotiated within a mixed use development that includes a hotel. Stay tuned.