Andrew A. Lance is a partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Real Estate Practice Group. He is resident in the New York office, where he is also a member of Gibson Dunn’s Finance Committee and Co-Head of the Real Estate Practice Group’s Hotel and Hospitality Practice. Mr. Lance’s clients include private real estate equity funds, hedge funds, corporate and individual developers and owners of office, retail, hotel, industrial, recreational, professional sports and entertainment real estate, mortgage and mezzanine lenders, REITs and other public and privately held companies investing in or using real estate. Mr. Lance also represents many not-for-profit organizations, particularly those building charter schools and involved in the performing arts. His practice includes restructuring of complex debt structures, equity interests in development ventures, and private and public-private ground leased and fee-owned development projects, as well as enforcement of remedies and realization on collateral by lenders in such projects.
Mr. Lance is a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and a fellow of the American College of Mortgage Attorneys. Mr. Lance is ranked as a leading Real Estate lawyer by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business. Chambers USA described him as “extremely knowledgeable,” “an incredibly intelligent practitioner who is particularly good in negotiations” and “he just knows everything and everyone in the industry, and has a very calming demeanor about him that people on both sides like to work with.” In addition, Mr. Lance is listed in The Best Lawyers in America©, New York Magazine’s “New York Area’s Best Lawyers” edition, The International Who’s Who of Real Estate Lawyers and in The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers. Mr. Lance chairs the annual program on Hotel Law and Business of the Practicing Law Institute. Mr. Lance was recognized by Legal 500 as a “big player in the complex field of mezzanine and preferred equity financing techniques.” Mr. Lance was the lead attorney for the transactions that won the Real Estate Board of New York’s Most Creative Retail Deal of the Year Award twice: the relocation of Hard Rock Café to the former World Wrestling Entertainment site at Times Square (2004), and the lease by Walgreens of the entire building at One Times Square (2007).
Mr. Lance joined Gibson Dunn in March 1999. He previously practiced law as Special Counsel with Sullivan & Cromwell in New York from 1984 to 1993. Mr. Lance also has served as a consultant to investment banking and management consulting clients on securitized finance and real estate transactions, and on global facilities leasing. He has been an Adjunct Professor at New York Law School since 1985, teaching Commercial Real Estate Leasing and Land Transfer and Finance, a Visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School and a lecturer at the New York University Schack Institute of Real Estate teaching Real Estate Finance and Investment Analysis. Mr. Lance also is a frequent lecturer at programs of the Practising Law Institute, the New York State Bar Association, the International Council of Shopping Centers and IMN Conferences. His recent speaking engagements include a Council on Foreign Relations teleconference on “Investing Capital in Real Estate in the Current Economic Climate,” and at the Real Estate Investment World Latin American Conference, on “Evolution of Private Equity Transactions in Latin America.”
Mr. Lance earned his Juris Doctor in 1983 from Yale Law School, where he was a member of the Yale Law Journal. He earned a Bachelor of Arts cum laude in 1980 from Princeton University and attended the University of Paris. Mr. Lance was a Fellow of the Coro Foundation Leadership New York Program for the 1999–2000 term. Mr. Lance has completed the Fitch Training Commercial Real Estate CDO credit and has advised issuers of commercial real estate CDOs and investors in CRE CDOs.
Mr. Lance has been honored twice, in 2004 and 2009, by the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, the service organization for not-for-profit performing arts organizations in New York City, for his support for A.R.T./New York and its member organizations. He joined the Board of A.R.T./New York in 2004, and is the former head of their Audit Committee, which he formed in 2005.
Mr. Lance’s practice focuses on the following areas:
Restructuring of the debt and equity positions in real estate development projects, resort hotels and other real estate investments, including both for the owner/developer and for the lender. Such engagements include loan extensions, forbearance agreements, deeds in lieu, UCC and real property foreclosure, modification of ground leases, bankruptcy advice and the purchase and sale of distressed debt, as well as disputes among members in owner entities including activation of buy-sell provisions.
