Norbert’s law practice focuses on real estate transactional law, including real estate acquisition, leasing and disposition, real estate finance, loan restructuring, foreclosure and related matters, entity formation and capitalization (including pre-formation structuring), and capital markets transactions (debt, equity and hybrid structures).
Norbert’s clients have included institutional lenders and advisers, including banks and finance companies, investment banks and investment funds, and property developers and owners, including developers of large retail projects, flagged hospitality projects and multi-family residential properties. He has negotiated and completed leases (including “bond” ground leases) and sales of entitled pads with various national and regional retail tenants, including Wells Fargo Bank, Bank of America, Citibank, Walgreens, Nordstrom, Walmart, Barnes & Noble, AutoZone, Les Schwab, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Raising Canes, California Pizza Kitchens, Panda Express, and numerous others. He has represented clients in sophisticated purchases, sales, financings and refinancings of commercial real estate, including the purchase and mortgage and multiple tranches of mezzanine financing aggregating over $1 billion in a simultaneous closing of a portfolio of office properties. He also has represented a client purchasing thousands of acres of agricultural land in central California, and other clients purchasing and selling performing and distressed commercial real estate.
Norbert has lectured at UCLA’s Extension Real Estate Finance classes (both introductory and advanced classes) and served as a panelist discussing “REITs: Battle of the Boundaries: Maryland v. Delaware v. Virginia” for the American Bar Association’s Section of Business Law.
Norbert earned his J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1980, and his B.S., with honors, in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School in 1977. Norbert is admitted to practice law in both New York and California.
Norbert spent three years as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of Imperial Credit Commercial Mortgage Investment Corp., including during its 1997 IPO (former symbol: ICMI). Prior to his role as general counsel, he was a partner in the real estate departments at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal from 1992 – 1997 (and again after ICMI’s 2000 merger into another public company) and Mayer, Brown & Platt from 1989 -1992. Before moving to California, he practiced law for several years at Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy in New York City.