Category: Real Estate Best Practices

In 21 years of tenant rep brokerage, I have had the privilege of working with some exceedingly smart real estate lawyers reviewing leases.  [Tom Aggen, Linda Warren, Vytas Petrulis, to name a few.]  I have learned so much from them and think it only fair that I in turn share that knowledge with you.  So, bookmark this page and pull it up next time you need to review and redline an office lease.  Hopefully, it will save you some time.

Entities and Definitions

When I receive a draft lease from a landlord, I start at the beginning, checking to ensure that the entity names are correct.  This blog post goes into depth about why it’s important that the landlord entity matches the tax records for the building and how to make sure that is the case.

Next, in leases, the drafters will frequently define terms that will be used repeatedly within the document. Those terms will be capitalized.  Make sure that there are no “defined terms” that are left undefined.  You can do this quickly by comparing to a “definitions” page in the document or by searching the defined terms to find the corresponding definitions.  If one does not appear, note it in your comments so that the drafting attorney can address.

Business Terms

Have the letter of intent or most recent proposal reflecting the terms to which the parties agreed handy while reviewing the lease.  Check that each of the business terms, i.e. term length, rental rate (including any monthly or annual rent payment calculations), space size and location, rent escalations and operating expense base year, is thoroughly addressed and comports with the negotiated agreement.

Commencement Date

This subject is a whole blog post unto itself and, unfortunately, not one that I have yet written.  Suffice it to say that you must verify that the commencement date occurs when you bargained for it, whether that be a date certain or upon completion of improvements.  Also ascertain who bears the risk for failure to deliver by the commencement date.  You do not want your company or your client paying rent for space they are not using.  Now is the time to make certain that does not happen.

Operating Expenses

In initial lease drafts, some landlords try to include every possible expense in the definition of Operating Expenses that may be passed through to tenants.  Click here to download my “go to” list of operating expense exclusions that I add to every landlord-generated lease I review.

Insurance Language

Insurance lease language can be full of landmines.  This will help you avoid them.

Assignment and Sublease

All leases address the rights (or absence thereof) of the tenant to assign or sublease the leased space.  This post details the five must-have lease terms relative to assignment and sublease.

Build Out

If your lease anticipates any kind of construction in the premises prior to occupancy, it will include, at a minimum, a workletter detailing the parties’ respective obligations for construction of the space.  Start by asking the person who will be responsible for overseeing the buildout on the tenant’s behalf to review it.

This blog post discusses all of the lease exhibits that should be included along with the workletter to ensure a smooth build out process.   Also, make sure these five interior finishes are addressed to guarantee a Class A appearance.  If you happen to be moving into a newly constructed building, this is a must read.

Expansion Rights and Rights of First Refusal

Always secure renewal rights and document them in the lease.  This post explains why.  In light of the new FASB regulations, read this to understand whether you want those renewal options to be at below-market rental rates.  Also, if your renewal term creates a total lease term in excess of 20 years and your lease is in Alabama, you must read this.

If your new lease includes a right of first refusal, make sure your lease addresses these 5 things.

Signage

If you negotiated signage, make sure the lease addresses these issues.

Almost Done

When you finish the steps above and a thorough read-through of the lease, make sure that these No Go Lease Terms are not included in the draft lease.  If they are, delete them.  Read the blog post so that you understand why you need to do so and can convey that position to the landlord’s attorney.

Lastly, while I am an attorney, I am licensed under the California Bar and currently inactive and therefore cannot give legal advice and do not have malpractice insurance.  Consequently, in a perfect world, you will go through the process I detail above and then send your redline to your actual lawyer who will then love you forever and sing your praises because you have saved him/her so much time.

When I was in college and grad school, I waited tables to pay my tuition bills.  At that time, my nightmares were either about tests for which I was not prepared or endless tables of customers waiting inordinately long for their food.

Fast forward to the present.  As a tenant broker, my work-related nightmares are about missing my clients’ lease renewal or termination notice dates.  It can be truly catastrophic for a tenant to miss a notice date and risk forgoing an option to renew or terminate a lease. And, landlords are not likely to let the lapse slide and honor the late notice — especially where tenant-favorable option language is concerned.

An example

You lease 10,000 square feet in an office building in Austin, Texas.  You have the right to renew for five years at a 3% increase over your then-current rental rate.  Because you originally leased your space before the market skyrocketed, your rental rate is currently $10 per square foot below market and this option will enable you to enjoy that below market rate for five more years.  If your lease says that you must give landlord 270 days prior notice to exercise this option and you don’t realize until too late that 270 days does not equal nine months, you just missed the notice deadline.  If you then end up with a market renewal rate, you just cost your company $500,000.  Ouch.

How do you ensure you never miss a date, whether you are the tenant or the broker representing the tenant?

My solution has been to abstract every lease into a lease administration database licensed by my company.   I then set ticklers to alert me in advance of approaching notice dates.

Some larger companies already have their leases in lease admin systems, however, I find this is the exception rather than the rule.  Further, often the broker does not have access to the system.  I will happily duplicate the client’s system in order to sleep well at night knowing that I am not going to miss a date.

How does this work?

After a lease is fully executed, I make sure it is abstracted into our database.  As part of that process, I set reminder ticklers to give me sufficient advance notice so that I have can notify my client of the approaching deadline and help them figure out how they wish to address it.

If my client leases 100,000 square feet and they have a right to renew for five years with twelve months’ notice, I am going to set my tickler for at least 18 months prior to the notice date to ensure the client has time to evaluate renewal versus relocation scenarios prior to giving notice.  For smaller spaces and/or shorter terms, ticklers are set closer to the notice dates.

What do I do when I receive a tickler notice?

On a renewal, I will look at:

• My client’s density in the location: Do they have enough space? Too much?
• My client’s rental rate vis a vis market
• The availability of relocation options in the market

I will synthesize the information above into a memo to my client so that they can evaluate their current situation and begin to formulate a strategy with regard to the renewal.  If my client is not yet ready to make a decision, I will reset the tickler for a month or two later so that I am not in danger of forgetting the notice date.  I keep resetting the tickler until my client has exercised or waived whatever right is concerned.

There are other benefits to having access to my own lease admin files.  I can answer any client questions regarding previously negotiated leases very quickly and accurately.  I can facilitate speedy review of any estoppel forms received by my clients and also monitor their leases for renegotiation opportunities.  For these reasons, my clients readily agree to let me abstract their leases.  And, because this is an application to which only the broker working on the deal has access, there are no privacy concerns as to other brokers or clients.

If my approach has piqued your interest, I am happy to recommend lease admin programs or discuss my process.  You can contact me here.

In leasing, when a landlord agrees to give a tenant a right of first refusal (“ROFR”), the landlord is committing that when the landlord receives a proposal from a third party for available space that is subject to the ROFR, the landlord will offer that space to the tenant at the terms offered to third party.  The tenant has the right to accept the offer and lease the space or refuse the offer, at which time the landlord may proceed to lease the space to the third party.

This sounds simple but in application, it is anything but.  To ensure that there is no confusion after the landlord gives the tenant the right of first refusal option, the following five things should be considered and documented in the lease.

#1 Term Length

Landlord and tenant must determine whether tenant may exercise the ROFR at the terms offered by the third party but for a term that is co-terminus with the tenant’s current lease, or whether the ROFR must be exercised for the term length agreed to by the third party.  This can be critical to both parties.  For instance, if the tenant has only two years left on its lease but needs additional space, may the tenant exercise its right on the space for only a two-year term when the third party was prepared to commit to a longer term?

Or, if the landlord requires that the tenant exercise the right for the same length of term agreed to by the third party, is there a mechanism in the ROFR by which the tenant can extend its existing lease term to be co-terminus with the ROFR space?

When I represent the tenant, my approach depends on the length and size of the tenant’s initial commitment.  If my tenant is leasing 100,000 square feet of space for a ten-year term and has a ROFR on the balance of a partial floor it occupies, I will push hard to ensure that the tenant has ROFR rights reflective of its importance to the landlord, i.e. extremely favorable.  If my tenant leases 5,000 square feet on a five-year term, I will push to ensure that the tenant has the right to extend its lease to be co-terminus with any expansion space it leases by virtue of a ROFR.

#2 Applicable Space

The parties must determine and document which space is subject to the ROFR.  For instance, if tenant has the ROFR on contiguous space and there are 10,000 square feet of vacant space adjacent to tenant, does the tenant have to exercise the ROFR as to the entirety of the space the third party desires to lease?  Or may the tenant exercise the ROFR as to a portion of the space in the third party offer?  Again, this negotiation is influenced heavily the tenant’s relative size and term commitment to the building.

#3 Continuing or One Time Right

Is the ROFR ongoing for the entire term of the tenant’s lease, or is it a one-time right?  Consider the situation where the tenant commits to a ten-year term and has a ROFR on contiguous space that happens to be vacant at the time the tenant signs its lease.  If the landlord receives a third party offer one year into the tenant’s term and the tenant does not yet need the space, will tenant’s ROFR endure through the third party’s five-year term such that should the same space become available in five years, the ROFR will reattach?

Similarly, if the tenant has the ROFR to all space on the same floor as tenant’s premises, if tenant turns down one space, that space is leased to a third party, and another space on the floor becomes available, does the tenant have the ROFR on the second space to become available?

Another thing to consider in this area is whether the landlord must present the ROFR to tenant again if the terms of the third party offer improve in the tenant’s favor after the tenant turns down the ROFR.  I like to negotiate language stating that if the third party negotiates a deal which is “materially better” than that presented to my tenant originally, the improved deal must then be presented to my tenant.  I will then negotiate the definition of “materially better” but usually I am content with “the effective net rent is >5% lower than the offer initially presented to tenant.”

#4 ROFR Notice Response Time

This is key to both the tenant and the landlord.  From the landlord’s perspective, time kills all deals.  If the landlord has to wait fifteen business days after offering the space to tenant on the third party’s terms, there is a very high risk that the third party will get spooked and look elsewhere.  On the other hand, if a tenant is getting close to needing expansion space but is not aware that some may be coming available, the tenant may need some time to evaluate the offer and secure internal approvals to move forward.  The tenant is going to want as much time as possible to evaluate and respond to the ROFR.

#5 ROFR Space Start Date and Condition

The landlord and tenant should agree as to whether the third party’s offer terms will govern the commencement date for the ROFR space and the allowance offered by the landlord to build it out, or whether the ROFR language in the lease between landlord and tenant will define these terms.  Allowance needs to be similarly considered as it is largely dependent on the term question addressed in paragraph one above.

Addressing these five points takes time and effort, however, your client – landlord or tenant – will be immensely grateful to you later when the ROFR process is efficient and conflict-free.  At the end of the day, the negotiated language has to work for both parties based on the needs/leverage each has at the time the right is negotiated.

If you do not work in commercial real estate for a living and have gone through the office leasing process, you have probably been confounded by the way many landlords play fast and loose with allowances for tenant improvements while refusing to budge on the rental rate.  In fact, I have been asked frequently by clients if they could trade some of the improvement allowance offered for a rent reduction.

The answer is usually no and here’s why.

First, any money offered as a tenant improvement allowance is spent improving the landlord’s asset AND can be depreciated over time.  Double benefit to the landlord.

Second — and often most importantly — in building valuation, rental rates are everything.

When an occupied building is sold as an investment property, the buyer is buying the building’s cash flows for the return on investment they will offer the buyer.  Initially, when investors are considering a building purchase, they often use a “cap rate” calculation to determine value.  Note that if the buyer gets serious, they will eventually run a much more complex and detailed financial analyses.

In a cap rate calculation, the buyer divides the net rent per square foot by desired return to get the value per square foot of the building.  The value per square foot is then multiplied by the building square footage.  [I am grossly oversimplifying the process to make a quick point but my overall approach here is sound.]

So, if a building charges a net rent of $20 per square foot, the investor wants a return of 9%, and the building is 10,000 square feet, the building will be worth $20/.09*10,000, or $2,222,222.

Now, say the landlord is offering you $10 per square foot in tenant improvement allowances and you say “we’ll just take the space as is; please Mr. Landlord, drop the rate $2 per square foot for each year of the five-year term instead.”  The landlord is probably going to say “no” and this is why:

If that landlord is considering selling the building after your lease is signed, and your lease rate is reduced to $18 per square foot, the building value to that same investor is now $18/.09*10,000, or $2,000,0000.  As a result, instead of writing you a check for $100,000 for tenant improvements, the landlord gave up that same amount in rental income, but the building value went down $222,222.

Building Size (RSF)	Rent/RSF	Total Rent on 5 Year Term	Value/sf @ 9% Cap Rate	Total Building Value
10,000	$20.00	$1,000,000	$222.22	$2,222,222
10,000	$18.00	$900,000	$200.00	$2,000,000

Even when a landlord is not considering selling an asset, valuation can be important.  For instance, if the landlord wants to borrow money against the building, or has already done so and has a minimum loan to value ratio, the building value impacts the amount that may be borrowed.

Rent/RSF	Total Building Value	Debt Max
$20.00	$2,222,222	$1,444,444
$18.00	$2,000,000	$1,300,000

 

If this landlord paid the tenant a $100,000 allowance but maintained a $20 per square foot rate, and a had a loan to value requirement of 65%, the landlord would still be better off by $44,444 in borrowing capacity after subtracting the monies used to fund the allowance.

Some landlords may give tenants that do not want or need an allowance the equivalent value in free rent at the beginning of the term rather than reducing the rental rate.  This is because once that free rent has been used up (in our example, after six months) the building value based on cap rate is maintained at $2,222,222.

Lease Economics 101 is complete.  Please look for another installment down the road!

I preach ad nauseum about the importance of understanding your client’s business if you want to provide a service to them.  Ultimately, all clients are buying solutions to their business problems, even if those problems are positive, like too much growth.  But if you don’t truly understand a client’s business, how can you understand their problems, and if you can’t understand their problems, how can you solve them?

Give me an example, please

A few years ago, a brokerage firm moved from downtown to midtown Birmingham.  Management’s motivation for moving was not to save money on real estate (they absolutely did not) or to build more progressive space (again, not the case).  Rather, due to the nature of their business (estate planning), the firm had an older clientele for whom downtown was intimidating due to the perceived difficulty in finding parking and the presumed safety risk.  In addition, the firm’s employees who might have benefited from a few extra hours in the office were leaving the downtown location early to beat traffic getting home.

This brokerage firm relocated to a more suburban location with abundant free parking closer to its employees’ (and clients’) homes and solved both its problems.  Its clients were more comfortable and its associates spent more time in the office producing.

If the firm’s broker had not understood his/her client’s needs, he/she probably would not have gotten this assignment.

If your client is a privately held corporation or partnership, understanding a business is slightly more challenging as you cannot rely on public financials.  However, it is still quite doable.

What does understanding a business mean?

It means understanding what the client does, for whom and how they get paid.  You also need to understand where a client is in its industry, where it’s going, who its competitors are and what those competitors are up to.

A case study: Law firm edition

Let me use as a law firm as an example to give you an idea of the information I think it is important.  This is the information I would gather before a first meeting and the rationale for each piece of information:

Number of attorneys: 

How large is this firm?  If possible, also determine how many non-attorney employees work at the firm.  Many metro areas publish Books of List which detail the number of attorneys at most local law firm offices.  Look for a local Book of Lists’ archive to compare the current number of attorneys to past years to determine if the firm is growing or…not.

Number of partners: 

How many partners does the firm contain relative to associates.  The leverage ratio affects everything from overhead costs to overall profitability.  It will also give you an idea of the number of decision makers in a firm as most firms consider every partner a decision maker. Speaking of decisions, how are they made?  By an empowered Executive Director and/or C Suite?  By a Managing Partner?  An executive committee?  A board?  Overall partner consensus?  This is probably the most important item to understand relative to law firms as it will often determine the overall strategy of the firm, the nimbleness of decision making, the progressiveness, et cetera.  It will also be a guide as to how you may need to structure your communications with the firm.

Locations:

Is this a firm with numerous location across a state? A country? The globe?  Does the firm operate in a “states’ rights” model where each office makes its own decisions, or is it more centralized?  Which locations are growing?  Which were opened most recently?  What is the number of attorneys in each location?

LLP or PC:

This is a can of worms I have only recently dived into, but what a can it is!  For instance, did you know that a PC (because it is a corporation) cannot have a mandatory retirement age for shareholders/partners?  This means, on the positive side, mature rainmakers are able to stay in the firm and continue to contribute without any arbitrary age cutoff.  On the negative side, it can result in an inadvertent bias toward short term decision making if the majority of the voting members skews closer to retirement, thereby making decisions based on the near future rather than the firm’s long-term destiny.  An LLP, on the other hand, can include in its partnership documents an age at which partners must sell back their shares.

Related to entity choice is capital contribution requirement.  If you can find out whether “members” are required to buy into the entity and how significant the buy-in is, you can get an excellent understanding of how the firm funds capital investments, i.e. debt versus equity or cash on hand.

Primary Industry:

Insurance defense? M&A?  Energy?  Aerospace? Tech?  The industry in which a firm practices dictates the type of work, how it is billed, where it is done, whether it is cyclical, the margins, the field of competitors and on and on.  I could list variables affected by the area of law practiced for hours.  You get the gist.  This is important.

Competitors:

Are competitors local, regional, national or global?  Why does this firm win the business it wins?  When it doesn’t win, who does it lose to and why?  Are competitors more aggressive on fees or do they boast more depth of knowledge in specific areas?  Understanding the competitive landscape will tell you a lot about where a firm sits and where it is going.

Recruiting:

Does the firm recruit a large class of first years out of law school each year?  Or does it focus more on lateral recruiting?  Out of which law schools does it recruit?  Recruiting strategy can have a significant impact on the location of law firm offices as well as the design of the space.  Law firms recruiting millennials are likely going to skew more open and collaborative than firms recruiting senior attorneys that are of a generation accustomed to large private offices.

Extra Credit:

What has the firm been in the news for lately?  In what causes is the firm active?  What does its C suite look like?  How about its website: recently updated or a forgotten project?

The net net.

Yes, I know it takes a good chunk of time to gather this information, but if it makes you more valuable to your client, isn’t it worth the investment?  I surveyed law firm clients (i.e. general counsel) and they told me: “Our outside counsel (law firm) needs to learn about us.”

Law firm clients are not alone.  All clients wish their service providers understood them better because it saves clients time and adds value and if you aren’t willing to make this investment, your clients will probably find someone who is.

Most days when I head into work in the morning, I am in “business” attire.  The theory is that this renders me appropriately dressed for any client meeting to which I might be called that day.  However, that is not always the case.  For instance, some of my clients are tech companies and I look like the Church Lady from SNL when I show up in pinstripes.

So, this whole dress code situation can be a problem whether it is self-imposed or company policy.  It gets even more interesting as different industries with different sensibilities on work attire lease office space in the same multi-tenant buildings.

When I lived and worked in Atlanta, there was a local landlord whose lease included rules dictating “professionally appropriate clothing” in the building.  The same landlord also insisted (in its leases) that any contractors performing construction in the building had to eat lunch in designated areas, presumably so that no one mistook them for actual tenants of the building.  As this was twenty years ago, I am cautiously optimistic that this landlord has evolved in their approach to dress codes.

I do understand that this landlord wanted its office buildings to be attractive to tenants with good credit and strong businesses and, in the late 90s, such tenants were usually professional services companies, financial institutions and Fortune 500 Companies.  I also understand that many of these desirable tenants had work dress codes and did not want the professional atmosphere they valued to be diminished by other tenants coming to work in flip flops and sweatpants.

Fast forward twenty years and “unicorn” companies like Uber, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Zappos have no dress codes.  In fact, Google’s employees joke that their dress code is “You must wear clothes.”  And, these companies are arguably the most desirable tenants because of their rapid and well-funded growth.

So what should a tenant do?  How should a multi-tenant building owner approach the issue, especially in cities other than tech-hubs San Francisco and Austin?  If you are responsible for managing a class A office building in New York City, how do you attract law firm tenants and tech companies alike?  Or do you have to choose between the two?  And if you are a traditional law firm tenant or financial services company, do you care what the other tenants’ employees looks like when they come to work?  Will it affect your clients’ perceptions of your firm?

I cannot answer these questions as there are as many approaches as there are situations.

The workplace has evolved extensively in the last ten years.  Business casual encompasses a broad spectrum from nice jeans to the traditional sport coat and khakis.  Consequently, it seems the best approach is to consider the issue (as a tenant or a landlord) before you sign a lease to determine whether it matters to you or affects your business.  If so, perhaps the landlord and tenant could agree to a minimal building dress code (no pajamas?) or, conversely, to a lack thereof.

On a recent visit to Denver, I was impressed with how easily a white shoe law firm coexisted next to a transplanted San Francisco tech company.  The law firm appeared to have embraced a very comfortable but classy version of business casual while the tech company had embraced a very upscale version of tech casual.  Perhaps over time, the stark differences between dress codes will dissipate.  Until then, give the issue some consideration when choosing your company’s next offices.

While I may be a Southern lady now, I was a Minnesota girl for the first 22 years of my life.  Consequently, I am no stranger to snow, shovels, sleds, and the like.

Now that I live in the South, my Minnesota friends are laughing at me and my fellow Southerners every time it snows and our cities shut down.  But y’all, its different down here.

We don’t have plows.  Our pipes are not well insulated.  We don’t know how to drive on ice and snow.  For the love, many of us don’t even own gloves, much less ice scrapers.

So, when we have a “major snow event” where we get five inches of snow like we did last Friday , it’s a thing.  Schools are cancelled.   People are advised to stay off the roads.  And our children improvise sleds out of boogie boards or flattened boxes.  As a tenant representative, I work from home.

Unfortunately, snow days look a lot different for my co-workers who manage office and medical buildings on behalf of our clients.  I asked Kathy Huckabay, one of the senior project managers at Colliers Birmingham, what was on her mind Friday and received this list:

• Spread sand and Ice Melt at all building entrances and stairs prior to the arrival of tenants.  When it starts snowing in the middle of the night, our property management staff is up crazy early to ensure our buildings are safe by 8 am.
• Run the building heat.  The temperature had been in the high 60s earlier in the week, so this is important to remember.
• Turn exterior water spigots off.
• Make sure any generators are topped off.  We regularly lose power in the South when it snows.
• Sweep any ponding water away from walkways to prevent ice and the ensuing slip and fall injuries.
• Set out caution cones.  Maybe these are not necessary in the North where people are accustomed to icy sidewalks, but in the South, they are a must.  
• Have the janitorial, security, and maintenance personnel keep Ice Melt/sand, cones, and a shovel in their truck beds.

To their credit, last week our property management staff kept all of our tenants safe while working very long and full days.  If you are a tenant in a southern office building, today would be a good day to give a nod to the kind and knowledgeable people that keep it all together when snow makes the South falls apart.

 

 

Whether you are an office tenant or a broker or lawyer representing an office tenant, here are five things to consider regarding your insurance obligations under a lease:

1. Know what you are insuring. For most multi-tenant office buildings, the landlord obtains the property insurance on the building itself.  The tenant is responsible for insuring its personal property in its space (i.e. furniture, fixtures, equipment, artwork, etc.) and any above-standard (read: high-end) improvements.  Make sure this is how the lease reads.  If it is not, confirm with your company’s risk management team that you have or can obtain the type of insurance requested in the lease.

2. Make sure that you only need to provide the landlord certificates evidencing coverage rather than copies of all actual policies. First, many corporations do not like sharing their insurance program details with anyone outside the company.  Second, the policies themselves change frequently and are often quite bulky.  You are not going to want to be responsible for ensuring that the landlord has up to date copies of your policies.

3. Make sure that your risk management team can comply with any other insurance specifications made in the lease. For example, many landlords dictate the minimum insurer rating (AM Best), the type of certificate (i.e. Acord form), the size of deductibles, the size of policies and whether the landlord is entitled to notification of changes and/or cancelations of policies.  Ideally, I strive for a reasonable rating, no specific certificate form, “commercially reasonable” deductibles and notifications only in the event of “material changes” or cancelations.

4. Try to limit the number of additional insureds required in the lease. Some leases will contain a long list of landlord entities including lenders, property managers, brokers, etc.  This can be cumbersome to the risk management team that is tasked with keeping certificates of insurance accurate and up to date.

5. Finally, to make it easier for your risk management team to comply with insurance requirements after the lease is signed, gather the following information at the time you enter into a lease:
   • The year the building was built;
   • The construction type (for instance, brick and glass, concrete, steel frame, etc.);
   • The number of stories;
   • Whether the building is sprinklered; and
   • Whether there is a security system in place.

Store this information with your lease, preferably in a lease administration database, so that it is easily accessibly when policies are renewed or changed.  I promise you it will be requested numerous times over the life of the lease and you will be glad to have it handy.

Once again, I am taking a break from the substantive real estate topics for Thanksgiving week.

Looking back over this year in my career, I am filled with gratitude for so many people and opportunities.

First, my clients are amazing.  They send me “thank you” texts while on vacation.  They ask about my kids.  They challenge me and reward me.  They make me grow and stretch and I am beyond thankful for every one of them.

I love the team here in my local Colliers’ office who make it so much fun to come to work.  My assistant, Stacey Williams, not only helps me “get it done” for our clients every day; she also helps me spread my message by reaching out to publications and websites on my behalf.  My partner and mentor, Joe Sandner, III, provides editorial review of every article I write, delivers timely pep talks, and shares the wisdom he has gained by representing tenants for the last thirty years.  Tommy Hiltz and Alison Waddell also provide valuable editorial review and the blog is so much better for it.

Speaking of this blog, I am grateful for Jason Nunnelley and his team at Upgrade Media who have taught me a sometimes-overwhelming amount about social media and digital marketing.  I mentally thank them every time I receive a notice of a new subscriber to my website.

I am so thankful for the warm welcome I received as I waded into the Tech Birmingham community this year.  The passion the people in this community have for learning, innovating and creating is inspiring.  I am encouraged by and grateful for all of these people, especially the folks at Viperline, Theranest, PhishMe, Kinetic, Telegraph and Knight Eady who have regularly let me wander through their spaces and ask them questions about how they work in those spaces.  Also, a big shout out to David Powell for the knowledge and the introductions he consistently provides me and to Jennifer Skjellum for giving me the opportunity to share some insights at a Tech Tuesday event.

In my quest to become an expert on how law firms make decisions, raise and spend capital, and recruit, I have monopolized thousands of dollars of otherwise billable time from Chris Grissom, Lindsay Sinor, Tom Clark, Katie DeBord, Cindy Patterson, Trudy Dennis, David Miceli, and Allison Woodruff.  Thank you!

Over the past year, I have worked hard on some big research projects and in addition to the insights those projects ultimately provided me (and hopefully, some of you), I am grateful for the fascinating people I met while conducting them.  Mark Hanson has become a mentor and a friend, always willing to share the knowledge he has gained from years of running top notch law firms.  Mark has also reached out to his network to help me set up tours of some stunning law firm office spaces in New York City.  Amanda K. Brady has likewise given freely of her time to help me understand the roles and value of the various law firm C Suite positions, introduce me to others in the industry and share my research with her extensive network.

Many hours spent reading this year were made productive thanks to amazing authors like Jordan Furlong, Heidi Gardner, Richard Susskind and Bruce MacEwen.   Similarly, many miles were happily run to Masters of Scale, Building New Law, Left Foot and The Nerdist podcasts.

I wrote an entire post earlier this year thanking the architecture community — without a doubt one of the most generous groups of people I have ever met.

So. Much. Gratitude. 2017.  Happy Thanksgiving!