High Stakes Real Estate Litigator

As a partner in the New York office of Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP, attorney Jennifer Recine is involved with high stakes disputes in real estate and hotel litigation.

Her practice primarily focuses on litigating over the investment, development, construction, sale, and management of billions of dollars in real estate assets and infrastructure projects, with a specialty in partnership disputes and land use matters.

Recine has played a key role in high-profile matters that span multiple sectors and include private corporations, publicly traded companies, political bodies, and state and municipal governments. Besides applying her legal acumen, her colleagues say she acts as a partner with her clients, helping them through business disputes and dissolutions. They say her skilled representation of prominent people and organizations in complex disputes earned her an early promotion to partner.

In one of her cases, she successfully defended a foreclosure action on behalf of distressed investors in the Miami Savoy Hotel. She has also secured sole ownership for real estate investor Eric Hadar and the Eric Hadar Family Trust of coveted Manhattan real estate development sites that were among the disputed partnership’s assets.

Among her ongoing caseload, she is representing former U.S. Ambassador (Ret.) César Benito Cabrera in a dispute over the potential sale of commercial property in Puerto Rico. She’s also the lead trial attorney representing the Beverly Hills Unified School District in its ongoing National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) action against the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), challenging a proposed Los Angeles subway extension. That complex land use case involves multiple constituencies, including elected members of the school board, the Beverly Hills City Council, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority, as well as federal agencies.

Recine acknowledges that it takes a team to get the job done. “Give credit where credit is due,” she said. “The work we do takes a team to execute. It never hurts to give credit to the people working for or with you. It does not diminish your contribution and people thrive when they feel appreciated.”

Recine holds a bachelor degree from the University of Vermont and law degree from Georgetown University Law Center.