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Mitchell Berkey, a member of Wolff & Samson’s Real Estate, Development and Land Use Group, concentrates on all aspects of real estate ventures and transactions, including acquisitions, sales, financing, development, leasing, management, loan workouts, ownership restructuring and resolution of intra-ownership disputes. His extensive background spans all asset types, including office, retail, industrial, hospitality and mixed-use properties throughout New Jersey and New York and in markets across the United States.

With more than a quarter century of experience in the legal and business worlds, Mitch brings a business-oriented approach to his legal practice. As an attorney, his experience includes advising institutional and entrepreneurial real estate owners, managers, lenders, corporate real estate users and foreign governments. As an asset manager, he was responsible for the management of a national portfolio of office, retail, industrial and residential properties.

Mitch’s experience includes a wide range of large-scale and unique transactions involving both the public and private sectors. Among the numerous projects in which he played a direct role are:

• Meadowlands Xanadu
• E Walk, a Times Square redevelopment project
• The disposition of REO (Real Estate Owned) portfolios
• The restructuring of a national syndication firm
• The acquisition, financing and remediation of Brownfield properties
• The master leasing of building facades for signage, billboard and telecommunications use
• The leasing and construction of foreign missions for sovereign nations
• The acquisition and sale of parking facilities

Mitch counsels clients on business formation, and the operation, financing, disposition and succession planning involved in joint ventures. He also advises in connection with business divorce matters, including the resolution of disputes among co-venturers.

In December 2008, New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine appointed Mitch to the New Jersey Real Estate Advisory Board, which was created to help establish strategies to encourage economic growth in the state of New Jersey. Mitch chaired the Advisory Board’s Environmental Subcommittee.

Mitch is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Real Estate Development at Columbia University, where he teaches in the Master of Science in Real Estate Development program. He regularly speaks on real estate industry matters and is the author of numerous articles on real estate and asset management issues. Mitch has an AV® rating from Martindale-Hubbell and is included in Real Estate New Jersey’s annual listing of the top commercial real estate attorneys.

Mitch received his J.D. from Fordham University School of Law, where he was editor-in chief of the Fordham Urban Law Journal.