Category: Erica Menze

Erica Menze and Dean Alterman will teach how to draft easements

Tomorrow Dean Alterman and Erica Menze will present a session on negotiating and drafting easement agreements at the annual conference of the Real Estate and Land Use Section of the Oregon State Bar. Here’s a sneak peek at one of our practice pointers: the passive voice is to be avoided. If you want to impose an obligation on a party, don’t say “the obligation shall be done”; say “Party X must perform the obligation.” For example, if you want the grantee to maintain a driveway, don’t say “the driveway will be maintained”; say “Grantee will maintain the driveway . . . ” and then add the specifics, such as ” . . . as a 12-foot wide all-weather gravel road, passable by cars and light trucks.” Another pointer: provide a legal description not just for the grantor’s tract and the grantee’s tract, but also for the easement area. Don’t encumber the grantor’s entire tract with the easement if the accessway will use only a small part of it.

Alterman Law Group lawyers named to Super Lawyers list for 2024

We’re very pleased to announce that Super Lawyers has named Dean Alterman to the 2024 Oregon Super Lawyers list in the field of real estate law, and has named Erica Menze to the 2024 Oregon Rising Stars list, also in real estate law.  Dean AltermanSuper Lawyers is a ratings service of Thomson Reuters. The annual selections are made using a patented multiphase process that includes a statewide survey of lawyers, an independent research evaluation of candidates and peer reviews by practice area.   No more than 5% of the lawyers in a state are named to the Super Lawyers list.

Dean was first named to the Oregon Super Lawyers list in 2009.  Erica was first named to the Oregon Rising Stars list in 2020.  Congratulations!

Erica Menze to speak on legal opinions

Erica Menze will be a panelist today at the 36th National CLE Conference of the Real Property, Trusts and Estates section of the American Bar Association, taking place this week in Washington, D.C.  Erica, her  co-panelists Cheryl Kelly of Thompson Coburn LLP and David Miller of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, and  moderator Imran Naeemullah of Quarles & Brady LLP, will talk about the fundamentals of borrower-side legal opinions in real estate finance transactions: the framework, the assumptions, the limitations, and the pitfalls.