II. Plusses/challenges of your practice area?
(subquestions: What role do you play? With whom do you interact
in your role?)
The best thing about my practice area is the rewarding relationships
that I have with my clients. They are incredibly smart public servants
- I am very lucky to work with them. The other nice thing is that
my work leads to tangible results. I can actually visit the new
mixed income housing that I participated in creating in Chicago
or DC and other cities.
III. Core skills/key knowledge needed in your practice
area? (e.g. Do you need to know a lot about tax and finance to
practice AH&CDL?)
In terms of substantive knowledge, working in the affordable housing
field requires knowledge of basic real estate law, administrative
law, constitutional law, corporate law, basic tax law, as well
as the law governing nonprofit organizations and federal grantees.
I believe affordable housing law also requires a certain temperament
that is self-directed, patient, organized, and flexible. This
practice area is good area for people who have good people skills
and like to engage socially with people with vastly different
backgrounds and education levels.
IV. "Social Justice and Economics": Discuss a deal you
have done that has made a difference.
Right now I am involved in the ambitious plan to transform Chicago
public housing. I work with the court appointed Receiver, which
is overseeing the redevelopment of some of the nation's worst
examples of isolated public housing into mixed-income communities
that will include public housing residents as well as other renters
and homeowners from all backgrounds and incomes. The Chicago plan
is exciting because it aims to replace every currently occupied
public housing unit with a unit in an economically mixed setting.
My piece of the plan is assisting the Receiver and the CHA to
negotiate agreements with developers, lenders, and investors and
assist them with HUD regulatory issues.
V. Advice to lawyers and law students interested in your
practice area?
It is important to understand that on a day-to-day basis the actual
work is very similar to large- scale commercial or residential
real estate development. Beginning lawyers or students experimenting
in the area are often surprised by the heavy amount of document
drafting required. I would advise those interested in this area
to take or study (1) legislative drafting and statutory interpretation
and (2) legal writing for transactional lawyers.
VI. Suggested reading and other resources in your practice
area?
1. Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education
and Black America's Struggle for Equality, Richard Kluger
2. There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing
Up in the Other America, Alex Kotlowitz
3. Forest Hills Diary: The Crisis of Low Income Housing,
Mario Cuomo
4. The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How it
Changed America, Nicholas Lemann
5. Politics, Planning, and the Public Interest: The Case of
Public Housing in Chicago, Edward C. Banfield and Martin Meyerson
6. Crossing the Class and Color Lines: From Public Housing
to White Suburbia, Leonard S. Rubinowtiz and James E. Rosenbaum
7. American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley, His Battle for
Chicago and the Nation, Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor
VII. Career path to current position: How did you get
to where you are today? In hindsight, are there other steps you
would recommend instead?
I went to Howard University School of Law with a plan to become
a "housing lawyer" who would advocate for low-income
families. My career goal came from my own experiences in a family
with housing challenges in a city that seemed to handle the need
to redevelop neighborhoods in a manner that brought improvement
without displacement. I thought that I would find work either
in public funded legal services or with a nonprofit housing and
community development organization. Instead, I landed at my current
firm, which gives me the opportunity to work on a broad range
of projects from around the country - from migrant worker housing,
to public housing, to market rate housing.