Hogan & Hartson has one of the United States' premier real estate securities practices. We serve as principal corporate, securities, and tax counsel for numerous public real estate investment trusts (REITs), lodging companies, and other real estate companies, including the nation’s largest REIT. We also represent a number of private real estate companies in portfolio acquisitions and dispositions and the creation of real estate investment funds. In addition, the firm regularly represents leading underwriters in connection with offerings of securities by real estate companies.

The corporate, securities, tax, and real estate lawyers who work regularly with our REIT clients are well versed in the issues facing public and private real estate companies today, and provide practical advice based on years of experience. The depth of our practice group enables us to provide valuable assistance on matters ranging from straightforward securities offerings to complicated initial public offerings and public company merger and acquisition transactions.

As outside general counsel to our real estate company clients, the breadth of our firm’s practice enables us also to provide experienced advice on virtually any legal matter our clients face. In providing services, we work seamlessly with our other practice groups to provide clients with comprehensive and practical legal advice. We routinely consult our employee-benefits, labor, intellectual property, environmental, legislative, government contracts, and litigation lawyers on a wide range of matters that affect our clients.

Awards and Rankings

• We were ranked in tier one by Chambers USA for REITs in 2007 and 2008.
• We were ranked No. 1 for U.S. announced REIT M&A deals for 2007 by SNL Financial.
• We were ranked No. 1 for global and U.S. REIT M&A deals for 2007 by Bloomberg.
• Hogan & Hartson consistently ranks among the top firms nationally in The American Lawyer's surveys of securities offerings for REITs.
• We were ranked in the top 10 REIT debt issuer's counsel and REIT equity underwriter's counsel in 2006 and 2007 by The American Lawyer.
• A number of our partners are members of the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT). We regularly assist NAREIT in its various initiatives, and one or more of our partners often participate in panels at NAREIT conferences.

• We represented targets and acquirors in more than 40 percent of all completed U.S. REIT M&A transactions over $500 million since 2006, and have been involved in some capacity in more than 70 percent of these transactions.
• In connection with the two largest REIT merger transactions ever, we represented the country’s largest REIT as the acquirer, handling virtually every aspect of the transaction for the company.
• We represented a nationally recognized lodging company in connection with its conversion from a C corporation to a REIT, the largest conversion ever at that time.
• We represented a major Washington, D.C.-based private real estate company in connection with the sale of its office property portfolio to a public REIT. The transaction was one of the largest private/public mergers ever in the REIT area.
• We represented the commercial finance/real estate division of a Fortune 50 company in connection with a series of complicated transactions in which the company sold its common stock position in a publicly traded retail REIT for total proceeds of more than $1 billion.
• We have represented the issuers or underwriters in several of the largest REIT debt and equity offerings in history, participating in over 100 debt and equity offerings aggregating over $50 billion of capital raised.
• We serve as day-to-day outside corporate, securities, and tax counsel for REITs that have a total aggregate market capitalization in excess of $30 billion in virtually every real estate sector, including office REITs, retail REITs, apartment REITs, and mortgage REITs.