SMDHlaw.com Shamberg Marwell Davis & Hollis, PC

The firm's clients are involved in a wide variety of enterprises and its practice requires attention to the legal problems of major financial institutions, multinational corporations, regional developers, title insurance companies, non-profit entities, closely-held businesses, and individuals.

Since Stuart R. Shamberg founded the firm in 1970, its members have adhered to its founder's principles of integrity of professional conduct, the proper relationship with adversaries, excellence of work, and delivery of efficient, resolution-driven, cost-effective services to the firm's clients.

Professional Staff
As the firm has evolved, its character has been shaped by blending legal talent that ranks with any in the country. The firm's lawyers represent a broad spectrum of academic and professional training. Many achieved academic honors and participated in editing legal journals. Some are active as adjunct professors and speakers in continuing legal education programs and participate as panelists at conferences and seminars. Many have written extensively in their areas of expertise for professional and business publications. The firm encourages all its lawyers to attend continuing legal education programs to broaden their knowledge and to enhance their professional skills.

Community Service
The firm has long understood that lawyers with a broad range of experience can better appreciate and help further the overall strategies and goals of their clients. Therefore, community involvement is a top priority of the firm. The firm's lawyers actively participate on policy-making boards in business and professional organizations and as members of school boards and special task forces. Members have assumed leadership positions in the Northern Westchester Hospital Center, Westchester County Bar Association, the Westchester County Bar Institute, the Westchester Women's Bar Association, the Northern Westchester Bar Association, The New York State Bar Association, The Boys and Girls Club of Northern Westchester, Food Patch, The Governor's Committee to Draft the New York City Watershed Regulations, Teatown Lake Reservation, Inc., and United Way of Northern Westchester, among others.
The firm's professional accomplishments and community involvement enable it to devise creative solutions and responsive, productive representation to its clients. The firm handles complex matters in a collegial environment in which its attorneys' experience and judgment are shared across the boundaries of individual areas of concentration. The firm forms "client service teams" to represent clients in appropriate situations.

Real Estate
The firm has specialized in real estate matters for over thirty years, and is well known in the real estate industry, representing a sophisticated and diverse client base. The firm is regularly engaged in all aspects of commercial and residential real estate transactions in both sale and acquisition of property; commercial and residential leasing, including long term ground leases; financing and conveyancing; land title and easement matters; industrial, mixed use, shopping center, and waterfront properties in acquisition and development, and particularly in urban renewal projects. The firm also draws upon its other areas of expertise to the real estate transaction. For example, in a typical real estate development project, in addition to the basic real estate and financing aspects of the matter, the firm makes use of its corporate and partnership expertise to assure that the most advantageous ownership entity is formed; to assist in obtaining proper zoning and all necessary governmental permits, approvals and licenses; to utilize its expertise in development and management aspects to assure that there are no legal impediments to the project being properly built and operated; to help the owner or management solve or avoid employment disputes; and to avoid, if possible, or to handle, if necessary, any litigation issues which might arise with the project, always recognizing the economic realities of the client's position. Throughout the process, the firm focuses its attention on thoroughly understanding each client's business and goals. In this manner the firm often forms close personal relationships with clients. This cooperative spirit and professional representation has built strong relationships with clients and community that span the lifetime of the firm itself.

Corporate Commercial
Although the firm is nationally known for its concentration in real estate law, particularly zoning, environmental and land use, it actively practices in the areas of banking and finance; commercial real estate acquisition; landlord-tenant law; sale and leasing; municipal law; corporate and general business counseling; estate planning, taxation, and administration; syndications; elder and education law. We also have experience in condominium and cooperative development and management.

Land Use/Zoning
The firm's members regularly represent clients before state and local administrative agencies, navigating through the obstacles of regulatory approvals and asserting the rights of property owners in the face of increased governmental regulation. The firm is regularly engaged in matters of site acquisition, both residential and commercial. The firm has created an extensive body of law placing limits on the exercise of governmental authority. The firm regularly handles matters involving unconstitutional "takings" of property rights, challenging illegal impact fees and zoning regulations, asserting civil rights claims, and challenging the illegal exercise of governmental authority. Many are landmark legal cases that have created important legal precedent with an impact on a regional and national level. We have extensive experience in the environmental review of development projects and represent clients in connection with zoning and subdivision approvals. The firm’s members regularly appear before zoning boards, municipalities and land use agencies in connection with applications for special permits, subdivision approval, variances, zoning text and amendments, and other administrative actions required by development projects.

Litigation
The firm has an extensive state and federal litigation practice in the trial and appellate courts. The firm focuses on land use, environmental, commercial, title defense, real estate, personal injury, foreclosure, and family law. Clients range from entrepreneurs and small businesses to religious, educational and other not-for-profit organizations, to individuals and multinational corporations. The firm handles diverse litigation relating to corporate, commercial, individual and institutional business matters, among them partnership and joint venture disputes, real estate contract disputes, adverse possession, arbitration proceedings, and insurance matters. The firm also has extensive experience defending litigation under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act, as well as the Clean Water Act, Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act, and other analogous state environmental laws.

Trusts & Estate
The firm also has a broad trusts and estates practice, which includes estate, gift and generation - skipping transfer taxation planning, estate and trust administration, fiduciary income tax and post-mortem tax planning. The firm has developed special expertise in dealing with the problems of clients with substantial assets, including sophisticated planning involving tax efficient transfers of growth assets using vehicles such as lifetime trusts, family corporations, limited liability companies and partnerships, and charitable lead and remainder trusts.

Summation
For more than a third of a century, the firm has applied its ethical and professional standards and its lawyer-client teamwork approach to problem assessment and resolution. While the firm handles business and real estate transactions throughout the New York region and has a national reputation for its land use expertise, most of its practice centers on business relationships which occur in or involve the County of Westchester, and Southern New York State. The firm considers the growth potential of the mid-Hudson region to be virtually unlimited, and Shamberg Marwell Davis & Hollis, P.C. is uniquely structured to assist its clients in realizing that potential.

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