Last month our partners Erica Menze and Dean Alterman joined Patrick Bartman of Baird Holm LLP to present a 90-minute seminar on negotiating and drafting leases and easements for the Real Property, Trusts & Estates (RPTE) section of the American Bar Association. The seminar is one in a series, “Lay of the Land,” that RPTE is presenting this year to provide practical technical advice to newer real estate lawyers.
Clients save money when their lawyers base new agreements on old forms, but some forms are a little too old. I haven’t seen a lease form that allows the parties to send each other notices by Pony Express, but last year two law firms sent me lease drafts that allow the landlord and the tenant to send notices by telegraph.
Dean Alterman’s second book, How to Draft Easements, came out in print this month. It’s published by the Real Property, Trusts and Estates section of the American Bar Association and follows by six years his first book, How to Build a Real Estate Law Practice, also published by the ABA. The book explains the basic legal doctrines behind easements and easement agreements, describes how to draft five different types of easement agreements, and concludes by listing ten ways to misdraft an easement agreement. His goal in writing the book was to help lawyers “draft easement agreements to reduce the chance that your clients find themselves in court arguing about their rights. Litigation is a blunt and expensive tool with which to settle a dispute.”