Richard L. Canel, Jr., Co-Chair of the firm's Real Estate Department, has 30 years of professional experience in advising owners, developers and lenders throughout the United States concerning all aspects of commercial real estate including sales and acquisitions, construction and development issues, leasing and real estate lending. Mr. Canel's approach to assisting clients is focused on both the business and legal aspects of each transaction thus providing clients with the most comprehensive and cost efficient resolution of transactional issues possible. Mr. Canel was a partner at Blank Rome Comisky and McCauley, LLP from February 1986 through June 1999 and was chair of Blank Rome's Real Estate Finance and Real Estate Workout Groups from 1991 through June 1999. In this capacity, he represented numerous financial institutions including commercial banks, insurance companies and other institutional lending sources in connection with their construction, interim and permanent lending activities both on a regional and national basis. Mr. Canel also has extensive experience in the representation of institutional lenders in the area of loan workouts and related matters including loan restructurings, "OREO" asset acquisitions and intercreditor relations. Mr. Canel was chair of Blank Rome's Community Development Law Group from 1996 through June 1999. This group specialized in handling legal issues applicable to real estate development projects characterized by multi-tiered financing arrangements requiring sophisticated analysis and other skills to integrate debt, equity and near debt/near equity combinations including the frequent use of Federal Historic Tax Credits and/or Federal Low Income Housing Tax Credits. Between June 1999 and July 2003 Mr. Canel was a partner at Wolf Block Schorr & Solis-Cohen, LLP in its Real Estate Practice Group and a member of its Government Assisted and Affordable Housing Practice Group. Mr. Canel has participated in the following representative transactions: (i) The $225,000,000 acquisition of a nationally known pharmaceutical complex in Suburban Philadelphia in which he represented the acquirer in connection with the structuring of the transaction's preferred equity/mezzanine debt financing which was the critical funding component for the acquisition; (ii) The restructuring of $150,000,000 of permanent mortgage debt in which he served as borrower's counsel, in connection with a major regional real estate investment trust's $300,000,000 New Jersey joint venture with an affiliate of a nationally known California public employee pension fund; and (iii) FV Office Partners, L.P.'s leasing of two buildings within Chesterbrook Office Center to Shire Pharmaceuticals in which he represented FV Office Partners, a transaction which was designated one of Philadelphia Business Journal's "Best Real Estate Deals" for 2004. Mr. Canel is a member of the bars of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the State of New Jersey, and the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Camden County (New Jersey) and American Bar Associations. Mr. Canel holds a B.A. (Magna Cum Laude) from Fairfield University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia.