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2019 Com. Div. Online L. Rep. [1] (2019)

handle is hein.journals/comdiso2019 and id is 1 raw text is: An Interview with Bruce DePaola, Esq. By Mikhail StoliarovIStaff Writer Mr. Bruce DePaola, Esq., is a partner in the Real Estate practice of Paul Hastings, where he represents real estate developers, commercial landlords, real estate investment trusts, and institutional lenders involved in some of the most sophisticated and innovative real estate transactions occurring today. Mr. DePaola generously offered to discuss his experience and perspective on pursuing a career in the area of real estate development law. Mikhail Stoliarov: So, the first question is, what is real estate development law and how does it relate to commercial law? Bruce DePaola: Real estate development law is in large part the law where the product is real estate that is to be developed. So, particularly the areas that I work in, it's commercial law with all the same aspects you'd have in an M&A transaction or an asset transaction, but the product involved, the asset involved, happens to be real estate and that real estate is going to be changed, or developed, or modified. Mikhail Stoliarov: Got it. How did you choose this area of law to practice? Bruce DePaola: I always knew I wanted to do some kind of transactional law, and I didn't love litigation. I realized that transactional law, more so than litigation, had a daily aspect to it that I thought was the daily aspect of litigation. I always enjoyed negotiating, having a battle of wits, and realized that with litigation, those aspects only came up in a very rare circumstance when you finally got to a trial or deposition. In litigation, there is a lot more research, writing long briefs, and a lot of time that I would consider down time between the action. In real estate law, particularly real estate development law, every day there's negotiation. Every day it's a debate, the testing of your will, your cognitive ability, and your ability to think on your feet which is exciting and why I still enjoy the job I do 25 years later. Mikhail Stoliarov: Yeah, that sounds exciting. Okay, so can you briefly describe your professional networking during law school? Bruce DePaola: Yeah. So, there wasn't a lot of formal networking. I started working at a small shop in Garden City my second year of law school just to earn some money, and that's where I began to understand what transactional law was about. It was a real estate shop with three guys that had worked at bigger firms in New York City. The head guy was a St. John's alum. They were sort of semi-retired at age 60 and moved closer to their homes in Garden City to work. I met them through a career posting through St. John's. I went to go talk to them and started out working a couple hours a week, which moved into about 20 hours a week. And then I left school and I think it was one of the worst years to find a job in the last 30; 1991 was a terrible year. I asked if I could work full-time there, and they said, Sure. So, that's what I did. So, there wasn't really a lot of formal networking for me. I'd sort of gone through the on-campus interviewing-with a partial success I'll call it-because I got a job for the summer, and then halfway through the summer they