Tracey E. Skinner, Esq.

   In the Fall issue of Ground Rules, I shared information with you about the great projects and programs that the Section Council Members and certain Section Members had completed or were gearing up to complete for our members. Now, in this issue, I can tell you that the member benefits from such work continue to grow.

In the tradition of the Section presenting excellent educational programs, Guy Flynn and Sheila Brooks-Tahir, from our Education Committee, recruited Ann Heesters Schroth and Lila Shapiro Cyr, both from Ballard Spahr Andrew and Ingersoll, LLP, to co-chair the upcoming “Basics of Real Estate Transactions Evening Series”. This evening series, being presented jointly with MICPEL, will be held once- a-week for 5 weeks. The course will provide a detailed overview of a broad range of commercial real estate transactions. The topics of the program range from acquisition to zoning and cover almost everything in between. The stellar faculty members are attorneys from Ballard Spahr. This promises to be an invaluable program for the attorney who wants to broaden his or her expertise in commercial real estate. Thank you to the co-chairs and the faculty for working on this series. (For registration information go to http://www.micpel.edu/seminars.htm or http://www.micpel.edu/.)

On the legislative front, the Legislative Committee, chaired by Theresa Shea, began its work prior to the current Legislative Session. Thanks to the research and drafting of Edward Levin, of DLA Piper, and Kevin Shepard, of Venable, the Section is sponsoring two bills one on the Rules against Perpetuities (HB 188) and the other dealing with the binding nature of successors and assigns language in documents (HB 186). The Committee also has commented on current bills dealing with community associations and is monitoring the ground rents legislation. (For more on the committee’s work, e-mail Terry Shea at Theresa.B.Shea@bge.com.)

Looking to repeat the success of the formation of the Section’s Foreclosure Committee, David Freishtat and Nancy Regelin, both of Shulman, Rogers, Gandal, Pordy & Ecker, P.A., have agreed to co-chair the Section’s new Land Use Committee. More information will be provided soon. Also, the Section, through the activity of our ADR Committee, chaired by Tom Barbuti, is co-sponsoring, with the Alternative Dispute Resolution Section and other Sections, a Business ADR Program, including a dinner program in the Fall of this year. Former Senator George Mitchell from Maine and Kathy Bryan, the President of the International Institute of Conflict Prevention and Resolution are tentatively scheduled to be the keynote speakers. The Section’s reach is growing!

For some follow-up notes, Ed Lee, Chair of the Commercial Real Estate Luncheons, and Michael Swanenberg, Sara Arthur and Jack Zemil, of the Technology Committee, have worked closely with Gore Brothers to bring “on demand” webcasting of the Commercial Real Estate Luncheons to all of our members. As I have stated before, this project is a work in progress, and your feedback is appreciated. However, I think that we are getting close to having a good webcast product for the Section thanks to the hard work of those mentioned and their commitment. Also, the Section owes a special thank you to Gore Brothers for working closely with us and for providing the technological know-how and innovation and a generous in-kind contribution of creating the web cast web page. To view the latest luncheons and obtain the related written materials, if available, go to http://webcast.gorebrothers.com/.

As you can see, the Section Council and Committee Members keep working to bring benefits to the Section’s members, and the benefits continue to grow. If you are interested in working on a committee, please contact me, at Teskinner@aol.com.


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