Cozen O’Connor has announced veteran real estate attorney Jennifer Nellany, who has served as both outside counsel and in-house general counsel for some of the world’s largest public and private real estate brands, has joined its award winning Real Estate Group. A real estate generalist with a focus on hospitality, Nellany joins Cozen O’Connor as a member and will reside in its New York City office. She is the fifth major addition to the firm’s Real Estate Group this year, joining Meenakshi Srinivasan in New York, and Enzo Sallese, Steven I. Pearlstein, and Andrea Wong in Toronto. Prior to joining Cozen O’Connor, Nellany served as general counsel for New York City-based Kushner Companies.
At Kushner Companies, she advised on general day-to-day real estate matters impacting the company’s residential, commercial, retail, hospitality, and industrial properties — a portfolio that includes 12.9 million square feet of space currently under development and over 26,500 apartments across 13 states.
Reporting directly to Kushner’s CEO, Nellany drafted and negotiated an array of complex commercial agreements; reviewed and helped structure debt and equity transactions in connection with Kushner’s multifamily portfolio and its hospitality assets, including acquisitions, opportunity zone investments, financing transactions, and joint ventures; and managed the organization’s litigation portfolio. Drawing upon that experience, she will continue to provide transactional and advisory legal services at Cozen O’Connor, with a focus on expanding the firm’s hospitality practice.
“Jennifer is keenly aware of how day-to-day legal demands can impact a general counsel’s limited internal resources,” said Jonathan W. Knipe, co-chair of Cozen O’Connor’s Real Estate group. “As a result, she’s especially well-versed in how we — as outside counsel — can most efficiently and effectively partner with in-house counsel to address those demands and minimize their impact. She’s a terrific addition to our group and I’m thrilled to welcome her aboard.”
“Jennifer also has a degree in accounting, a background in tax, and practical experience in mergers and acquisitions and other sophisticated real estate transactions,” said Michael C. Schmidt, managing partner of the New York office. “Her experience with everything from property development to financing, operations and M&A is the type of background our real estate clients need and want. She’s an important addition to the firm and I’m very happy to welcome her to the New York office.”
Prior to joining Kushner, Nellany served as general counsel and executive vice president at New York’s privately held Tishman Hotel & Realty/Tishman Capital Partners. As GC, she had responsibility over Tishman’s extensive hotel portfolio, its family office, its registered investment adviser, and its hedge fund, Tishman Capital Partners — which manages family office and third-party investments, and has $1 billion in assets under management. Earlier in her career, she served as GC for both New York-based information services provider kgb and for Morgans Hotel Group and spent nine years with a major New York-based law firm’s Corporate Real Estate practice.
“Former colleagues who have had such a wonderful experience here told me that I would be a great fit at Cozen O’Connor. After meeting several members, associates, and staff, it is clear that this firm is indeed a perfect fit,” Nellany said. “I’m very much looking forward to working with my new colleagues to help further expand the real estate practice and to build a global hospitality practice as part of that.”
Nellany earned her L.L.M. in Taxation at New York University School of Law, her J.D. at Rutgers University School of Law, and her B.S. in accounting at the University of Delaware.
