Misty Sanford > Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP > Los Angeles, United States > Lawyer Profile

Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP‘s real estate team leverages its industry experience to advise clients on every aspect of their real estate transactions. The practice demonstrates a considerable breadth of services including advising on acquisitions and dispositions, lease agreements, equity investments, and joint venture negotiations. Notably, the firm has extensive experience in complex mortgage and mezzanine finance work, regularly advising debt funds, banks, and life insurance companies on real estate matters involving a variety of asset classes. The West Coast team is led by chair Misty Sanford in the Los Angeles office, who brings broad transactional experience with an emphasis on loan workouts, real estate financings, and complex mixed-use developments. In New York, co-chairs David Drewes and Carly Glover Saviano focus on all types of real estate transactions and represent a range of clients.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP’s real estate finance practice, co-led by David Drewes and Carly Glover Saviano  in New York, alongside Misty Sanford who chairs the West Coast practice from California, handles complex transactions for lenders. The practice is particularly active in advising debt funds, banks, and life insurance companies on loan originations, syndications, and remedies across various asset classes including life sciences, data centers, gaming, and industrial properties. The group leverages its multidisciplinary approach, collaborating with the firm’s corporate, tax, and restructuring teams to handle sophisticated transactions, including the acquisition and disposition of balance sheet and CMBS mortgage loans and mezzanine loans on behalf of lenders. Joint ventures and financings form the core of Daniel Backer and Jennifer Coffey‘s practice. Krystyna Blakeslee and Thomas Henry have left the firm.