Foley Gardere announced today that Clifton Dugas has joined the firm’s Real Estate Practice Group as a partner in its Dallas office.
Dugas has more than 20 years of experience representing a wide range of clients in the real estate industry, including commercial lenders, loan servicers and borrowers in acquisitions; owners, developers, buyers and sellers in acquisitions and dispositions of office, multifamily, retail, mixed-use, raw land, and industrial commercial real estate; landlords and tenants in commercial transactions; and clients in the vacation ownership and timeshare industry. He also has experience with transactions involving health care, student housing, publishing facilities, oil and gas properties, and residential investment portfolios.
Dugas’ representative experience includes serving as the primary leasing counsel for a globally integrated asset manager assisting office properties nationwide with leasing, sales, acquisitions and property management issues, as well as representing a private Canadian real estate lending company with numerous, fast-moving deals ranging in value from $10 million to more than $100 million. In addition, he previously represented a large institutional lender with over $1 billion in troubled real estate assets.
More generally, Dugas’ background with real estate asset transactions includes an emphasis on purchases and sales, leasing, development, and property-related matters. He also advises on entity formation with respect to ownership and operation. Dugas works with private and institutional lenders on real estate secured loan transactions, loan enforcement and workouts. On borrower-side financing, he helps negotiate loan documents and provides legal opinions to lenders.
“Clifton’s breadth of experience in both real estate and real estate lending will add significant depth and strength to our growing real estate practice in Texas and nationally,” said David Cook, chair of Foley’s Real Estate Practice Group. “Clifton will quickly become a vital resource for our clients, meeting their current and evolving business needs by applying two decades’ worth of experience in areas spanning real estate finance, development and lending.”
Dugas comes to Foley from Polsinelli PC, where he was an equity shareholder in the financial services department, which included the real estate and commercial lending practice groups. Prior to that, he was managing director and chief legal officer at Lantern Asset Management LLC, a full-service commercial real estate asset management platform that managed a $1.1 billion portfolio of timeshare and resort construction, along with hypothecation loans and real estate property.
“We are thrilled to add Clifton to our expanding team,” said Michael Newman, managing partner of Foley Gardere’s Dallas office. “Clifton provides invaluable knowledge and diligence to his clients, pulling from his experience in private practice and as an in-house counsel, and uniquely understands their business needs and strategies, all of which will make Foley Gardere’s Real Estate Practice even deeper.”
