Profile

About Eckert Seamans Attorneys at Law

Eckert Seamans is a national, full-service law firm with a strong reputation and history of success that spans 65 years. With more than 300 lawyers across a network of 15 offices, including Princeton and Newark, New Jersey; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; White Plains, New York; and Wilmington, Delaware, among others, we provide clients with proactive, solution- oriented business and litigation counsel. Our clients trust us to guide them through their most challenging legal issues, most significant business transactions, and critical disputes, often cross practices and jurisdictions.

REAL ESTATE AND LAND USE
Eckert Seamans’ Real Estate team is thoroughly equipped to deal with traditional real estate concerns such as land use/zoning (conventional and planned developments), redevelopment, environmental (NJDEP/LURP and remediation), title, conveyancing, financing, leasing, and eminent domain. The team also handles all aspects of real estate-related transactions, from assisting in structuring the deal to preparing and negotiating the operative documents. We have extensive experience before planning and boards of adjustment, governing bodies, and local, regional, and state authorities and agencies, representing clients throughout all stages of development approval and construction. The firm also regularly represents clients in obtaining both traditional and creative financing and represents lenders in all varieties of construction and permanent mortgage and mezzanine loan transactions. We also draft public offering statements for the sale of ownership interests in residential condominium and fee simple communities with homeowners associations. We have been involved in numerous condominium and cooperative conversions. Moreover, backed by the full- service resources of the firm, the Real Estate team is prepared to deal with all other aspects of real estate law including environmental issues, construction, government affairs, tax, and labor and employment law matters.

HOSPITALITY LAW
Eckert Seamans’ nationally-recognized Hospitality law group has extensive experience in transactional work involving hotels, spas, restaurants, entertainment venues, timeshares, condominiums, and golf courses. The Group represents private equity funds, real estate investment trusts, lenders, owners, developers, hotel management companies, and operators of spas and restaurants in matters including acquisitions, dispositions, and financings of hotel and resort real estate, joint venture agreements, management agreements, franchise agreements, public and private financing arrangements, mergers and acquisitions, and general securities matters.

ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
Eckert Seamans’ Environmental Group counsels clients with compliance, enforcement, self-disclosure, permitting, government rulemaking, responding to information requests, strategic planning, and other matters that are subject to the major environmental regulatory programs, including the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act. We also have significant experience working with state and local counterparts to these federal programs in numerous jurisdictions across the country, including areas where state and local programs tend to diverge from the core structure of environmental requirements established by federal law.

UTILITIES
The Utilities Group is dedicated to addressing the unique needs of regulated utilities and the companies that interact with them in the electric, telecommunications, gas, water, and transportation industries. Eckert Seamans assisted the New Jersey Builders Association in drafting comments to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities regarding modifications to BPU’s Main Extension Rules necessitated by the federal Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed into law on December 22, 2017. The Comments discussed how the potential implications of the TCJA could further exacerbate New Jersey’s already-existent housing affordability and supply problems. To curtail these potential detrimental impacts, the Comments urged BPU to refrain from adopting a gross-up methodology for recovering the consequences of a federal income tax imposed on Contributions in Aide of Construction for water and wastewater utilities and to, instead, adopt a no gross-up method for these utilities.

PUBLIC FINANCE
Eckert Seamans' Public Finance Group serves as counsel in all types of public finance transactions involving the issuance of tax-exempt and taxable debt, including general obligation as well as structured, revenue-driven, or credit-enhanced, for or on behalf of governments, non-profits, governmental authorities (including mass transit, airport, water, sewer, low and moderate- income housing, educational, cultural, health care, and student loan), and private entities (including public/private transactions). The Group maintains a multistate practice. The roles as counsel include serving as bond counsel, disclosure counsel, underwriter’s counsel, bank counsel (credit enhancement, loan and lines of credit, direct purchase and derivatives), borrower’s counsel, trustee’s counsel, and tax counsel.