Spotlight on Allen Popowitz

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I have been with Brach Eichler for 25 years—I joined in September 1995 right after law school. I did not have any background in real estate, but was very interested in the subject throughout law school. At an event, I approached real estate investor Charlie Kushner who was previously a partner at Brach Eichler. Since leaving the firm, Charlie had become one of the firm’s largest clients. He sent my name over to Alan Hammer, Chair of the Real Estate Practice. After a number of interviews with Alan and the other partners in the Real Estate Practice at the time, Al Tafro and Michael Schneck, Alan extended me an offer.

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I love working with Alan. I couldn’t ask for a better mentor or partner. In the beginning, he was like a father figure to me. The year before I came to Brach Eichler, my parents died in a plane crash. When I joined the firm, Alan really took me under his wing. I have a unique relationship with Alan—different than I have with anyone else. He groomed me to be where I am today and helped me along the path to success. Our relationship is more like a partnership now, than a mentor/mentee relationship, but I still feel that way about him. I wouldn’t want to work with anyone else.

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He has taught me a lot about viewing deals from the business side of a transaction. Since he is a very successful multifamily property owner and operator himself, I have had the opportunity to see the owner’s side up close and personal and I don’t think that many real estate lawyers have the chance to do that. He’s also instilled in me—and I’m trying to instill it in the rest of the attorneys in the department—to do everything you can to make the deal work and don’t “overlawyer” a matter. Don’t look at how we can’t do something but how we can get the deal done. Our clients want to get their transactions closed; they don’t want an attorney who is going to tell them that they can’t do the deal. They want someone to find a way to make it work and, at the same time, keep them protected. I’ve worked with attorneys over the years who overlawyered matters, who killed deals, who tried to fight for every single thing and, in the end, no one wins. Alan has always pushed me to understand the real issues and not get bogged down on the insignificant ones.

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My clients include Kamson Corporation, JP Management, Geller Associates, and several other notable real estate companies. My association with them is much more than a client relationship; it’s very personal. It’s a friendship and there is a lot of trust involved—and a lot of communication. I make myself available to them as much as I can. And they expect us to do our job. It sounds obvious, but they don’t want to micromanage us. They want us to get the transaction completed. When I am working on these deals it’s like I’m working on them for a family member that I care about. Working together with my staff, we do whatever we can to help our clients achieve their goals.

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My objectives are to grow our business and our department and to meet the needs of clients, both old and new. We have great senior attorneys who can work on any deal that any of the big firms in New York can handle. We also have an incredibly skilled and dedicated team of paralegals, who I consider to be some of the best paralegals in the business. As a result, I think we have one of the strongest real estate practices in the region. One key goal is to groom our younger attorneys for leadership so we can continue to thrive for a long time to come.

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One of the most complex deals was when the Kushner Companies sold their whole portfolio—86 properties in five states. There were many different facets to the transaction and we had to close in 90 days, which was unbelievable. The sale price was $1.9 billion. That was in 2007. Today, we do a lot of 1031 exchanges, and while some are relatively straightforward exchanges, there are others that are extremely difficult to complete because they are improvement exchanges or reverse exchanges. Many of them involve complex structures designed to help clients effectively defer the payment of capital gains taxes.

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I am the Chairman of the Board of the Greater New York Chapter of the ALS Association. My wife’s family has been involved for over 40 years and I joined when my mother-in-law was diagnosed with ALS in 2010. After she was diagnosed, we learned that my wife’s family has the familial, genetic form of the disease. So I called and asked how I can get involved to help find a cure. About ten percent of all ALS cases are genetic and my family, unfortunately, is a member of this ten percent club. So I joined the board and then within a few years became Chairman. I have been the Chairman for six years.

Every fall, we have an in-person annual benefit dinner where we have celebrity sports and corporate honorees including stars like Mariano Rivera, Phil Simms, Derek Jeter and Muhammed Ali, to name a few. The dinner is huge and raises over $1 million dollars every year. Of course, 2020 will be the first year that we are not going to have an in-person event; but we are organizing a virtual event instead. I’m very involved in almost every aspect of the dinner, from recruiting the celebrities to working on the seating arrangements.

We also have several fundraising walks in New York and New Jersey that generate a lot of money for research. In the current environment they are all virtual as well.

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I have run six marathons; five were the New York Marathon and one was the Boston Marathon. Most of them I ran to raise money for The ALS Association’s Greater New York Chapter, but I think I am done—my knees are shot! When I am not working, I spend all of my time with my three sons and my wife, Emily, and I try to follow all of the activities that are important to them. Jonathan is 13, Noah is 11, and Maxwell is 8. I love playing golf with my family as well. When I was younger, I used to play a lot of baseball and I was drafted by the New York Yankees right out of high school in the 1988 draft. My claim to fame was that I was drafted ahead of Mike Piazza! However, my life took a different turn when I injured my elbow during my freshman year at Princeton University.

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I always tell people that they should work with us because they are going to find a level of service unmatched in the industry, not to mention the deep knowledge we have of the multifamily real estate business and commercial real estate in general. We know the New Jersey market so well, but we have also closed so many deals outside of New Jersey, as we have a number of clients who are now consistently branching out to other states. We are able to represent them in virtually every situation. We have structured some of the most difficult deals with joint venture partners and we have seen just about everything over the years! That is why our firm is such a great place for our clients.

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It is something I have wanted to do for a while because I have such a passion for the firm. I really want to succeed and want everyone else to succeed at the firm as well—every practice and every lawyer. I appreciate all of the support that I’ve received from my Brach Eichler partners. As a member of the Executive Committee, I’m trying my best to speak up, voice my opinion, and bring forth new ideas to help the firm grow even stronger.

The family atmosphere we had many years ago still exists today even though we have grown to an 80-plus lawyer firm. There’s a competitive atmosphere, but not in a negative way where people are trying to push each other down to get ahead. Everybody cares about each other and we all care about one thing: Growing the firm and being successful, individually and collectively as a group. There’s no other place that I would rather be.