On Tuesday, November 19, 2024, Coblentz partner Ashley Weinstein-Carnes will moderate the “Expanding, Revitalizing, and Repositioning Healthcare Facilities” panel during Bisnow’s Northern California Healthcare Real Estate Summit. The panel will address renovations, building upgrades, and innovations in healthcare spaces. For more details and to register, please click here.
2025 Best Lawyers® has ranked Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP among its list of 2025 “Best Law Firms,” including National Tier 1 recognition for Appellate, Land Use and Zoning Law, and Litigation and Controversy – Tax and national rankings in six additional practice areas. The firm was also named a Tier 1 “Best Law Firm” in 13 practice areas in the San Francisco Metropolitan market, with 19 San Francisco Metropolitan rankings overall.
Thirty-two Coblentz attorneys are also recognized in the 2025 edition of The Best Lawyers in America®, including two as “Lawyers of the Year.” Employment partner Fred Alvarez was awarded the Best Lawyers® 2025 Labor Law – Management “Lawyer of the Year” and tax partner Jeff Bernstein was awarded the Best Lawyers® 2025 Litigation and Controversy – Tax “Lawyer of the Year” in San Francisco.
The 15th edition of Best Law Firms, independently produced by Best Lawyers, serves as a benchmark for excellence, providing a comprehensive and reliable guide of the top-performing law firms. The rankings are meticulously compiled based on a rigorous evaluation process that includes client feedback, peer reviews, industry leader interviews, and detailed analysis of law firm data. More details are available here.
A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team:
Can downtown be saved? Mayoral candidates’ big ideas to stop the bleeding (SF Standard): The candidates agree that something must be done, but who has the right formula to make the downtown boom again?
State labels S.F. as a pro-housing city, one year after criticizing city’s slow housing progress (SF Chronicle): State officials have designated the City as pro-housing, pointing to “significant progress in accelerating housing development and removing obstacles that delay approval.”
Could changing this obscure S.F. building code allow the city to create more housing? (SF Chronicle): Supervisor Aaron Peskin introduced a resolution that convenes a “sensible density” working group to study permitting apartment buildings of up to six stories to be constructed around a single staircase.
Can Free Rent Revive Downtown San Francisco? (NY Times): The City is trying to lure businesses back with a free-rent period.
After public school closures, what happens to the real estate? (SF Standard): The San Francisco Unified School District is poised to close 13 facilities.
Beverly Hills is dragging its heels on a development with affordable apartments. The governor says: Build it (LA Times): California officials are turning the screws on the City of Beverly Hills, where approval of a new hotel and apartment complex is moving too slowly for state housing bosses and the governor.
Judge orders VA to build housing on UCLA baseball parking lot. On the double! (LA Times): U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has nullified UCLA’s lease to the veteran land and ordered the lot to be used for temporary housing.
What Kalamazoo (Yes, Kalamazoo) Reveals About the Nation’s Housing Crisis (NY Times): A decade ago, the city had too many houses. Now it has a shortage. The shift there explains today’s costly housing market in the rest of the country.
Why Does This Building by the Subway Need 193 Parking Spots? (Yes, Exactly 193.) (NY Times): New York and cities across the country reconsider decades-old parking rules.
How Developers Are Catering to Would-Be Homeowners With Rental Amenities (NY Times): Families are choosing to rent for the foreseeable future — some out of necessity, others for amenities.
Who’s Responsible for the Housing Crisis? How local governments broke America’s housing markets (The Atlantic): Local government is driving a housing crisis that is raising rents, lowering economic mobility and productivity, and negatively impacting wages.
The Labyrinthine Rules That Created a Housing Crisis (The Atlantic): A deep dive on the rules that govern land and how they function as the foundation of our lives.
This is How to Fix the Housing Crisis (NY Times): Tying federal transportation spending to building activity may be the best way to induce change.
Join Coblentz partner Jennifer Scharre on Friday, November 15, 2024 for the East Bay Trusts & Estates Lawyers (EBTEL) Fifteenth Annual Lunch Program. Jennifer will speak on Advanced Estate Planning during her session “What To Do with the Alphabet Soup of Trusts – How to Effectively Use Advanced Estate Planning Techniques for High Net Worth Clients.” For more details and to register, please click here.
