Gary Lachman

Mr. Lachman has over 30 years of experience as an international attorney related to entity and transactional structuring. In addition to complex international mergers & acquisitions, his focus has always been on large scale mixed-use development issues related to planning/zoning, financing, and contracting. He routinely works closely with municipal officials and staff members to obtain expanded development rights, variances, expedited permits and City Council approvals. His clients have included international resort developers and investors. He and his law partners have also represented the developers of hotel and resort properties not only in Florida, but in Turkey, Croatia, Azerbaijan, Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Egypt, and the UAE. As an example of the international nature of his practice, Mr. Lachman represented the owner of the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Istanbul on a project to acquire the Setai Hotel in Miami Beach from the US Bankruptcy Court in 2012.

Between 1998 and 2006, Mr. Lachman served in the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations at the U.S. Department of State. During his time there, he conducted real estate negotiations on behalf of the United States government in more than forty countries around the globe. In his position as an International Real Estate Portfolio Manager and leader of the New Embassies and Consulates group, he negotiated and managed the development of projects above €800m globally. Mr. Lachman has also been engaged in residential real estate acquisition and development in Vancouver, Canada for over 30 years working closely with local counsel and US-based investors.

While living in Istanbul, Turkey between 2007 and 2015, Mr. Lachman was Special Counsel on Foreign Law and a partner of Lachman Şimaylı & Aykut, an Istanbul-based legal consultancy comprised of Turkish attorneys with LLM degrees from top American and UK universities. Mr. Lachman was an associate professor of International Real Estate at the Johns Hopkins University, teaching a graduate level course in International Real Estate Investment and Development in Emerging Markets, having written a book on this subject. A former professor in the Faculties of Law and Communications at Koç University in Istanbul, he also was a visiting professor at Kuwait University in the UAE and Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland. This led to his tenure as an International Real Estate Consultant to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, assisting with their acquisitions and disposals in the U.S. and throughout the world. Over the years he has been a contributing journalist for the Hürriyet Daily News of Turkey and author of the book, Real Estate Investment, Development, and Law in Emerging Markets (PEI Media).