Elise G. Liebowitz

I’m writing this review as a commercial tenant. Elise has reviewed several commercial leases and lease renewals for me, and she served as my attorney for a recent commercial purchase. I have returned to her every time I’ve needed a lease reviewed. In my opinion, she is extremely thorough and consist...ently points out the important details in each lease—things I need to be aware of, think through carefully, and make decisions on before moving forward. During my recent commercial purchase, Elise handled an impressive amount of due diligence. She uncovered and explained aspects of the real estate transaction that I didn’t even know were part of the process. She is always willing to offer advice—whether it’s guidance on what to include in a Letter of Intent, negotiation strategies, or referrals to other legal professionals who handle different parts of law. I highly recommend her for any commercial real estate legal needs, and will be coming back to her in the future.

Elise Leibowitz is an over-priced real estate attorney who does a mediocre job and has a pretty poor style. She doesn't listen very well. After I hired her to review my company's lease, I briefed her by phone. I'm pretty sure she didn't take notes, because throughout the lease negotiation, she kept i...gnoring the items of most concern to me while bringing up things that were of little consequence. Despite my asking her for a fee estimate, I never got one. Worst of all, she really angered my landlord's attorney by revealing information that my broker was still negotiating with the LL's broker. This resulted in a late night phone call from my broker saying the LL insisted that I signed the lease, as is, the next morning or I would lose the space. The LL said, "That attorney of yours is a piece of work. It makes me wonder what kind of tenant you'd be." When the bill came, it was about 1/3 higher than I felt was fair for the work she had done. (It was a $12,000 bill; I told her I wanted to pay $8,000.) She denied that she had done anything to jeopardize the deal and would only reduce her fee by $275. There are a lot of real estate lawyers in this city. No need to waste your time (and money) with her.