Michele is a partner in the Real Estate & Finance Practice Group, specializing in commercial real estate law, with a particular focus on retail and office leasing on behalf of both landlords and tenants. She represents institutional and entrepreneurial clients in sophisticated commercial real estate transactions, including the acquisition, disposition, and leasing of a variety of types of real estate, including commercial, office, industrial and residential. Michele also has extensive experience representing owners, purchasers, and tenants of environmentally contaminated property, including the drafting and negotiation of access and remediation agreements, indemnity agreements, easements, licenses, and leases. Michele is also currently helping a major telecommunications company and its related subsidiaries achieve growth and visibility by negotiating their retail and office leases.
Michele has also written about and lectured on many commercial real estate matters. Some examples are:
- Co-author of “Avoiding Purchase Option Pitfalls” (Property Writes, second quarter, vol. 8, issue 2)
- Co-author of “Filling the Purchase Option ‘Gap’: Preservation for Suspension of Rental Income and Other Lease Rights After Exercising the Option and Prior to Closing” (The Real Estate Finance Journal, Winter 2005)
- Contributor to “When Is Real Property Exempt From Property Taxes? A “View to Profit” May Defeat the Tax Exempt Status of Real Property Used for Educational Purposes” (Property Writes, first quarter, vol. 9, issue 1)
- Lecturer at the City of Chicago Treasurer’s 2004 3rd Annual Small Business Expo on issues relating to retail and office leasing.
Michele is also a member of the firm’s Green Development Initiative, a firm-wide team created to help clients understand and manage the opportunities associated with green building.
Before joining the firm, Michele was an associate with Holland & Knight, LLP, and previously served as in-house counsel to BP, plc (formerly Amoco Corporation), where she handled real estate and environmental matters associated with their gasoline service stations, including the auction of a portfolio of surplus properties. Her previous experience as in-house counsel gives Michele the ability to better connect with clients and to better understand their needs.