Bob Harris- From Blue Collar Roots to Land Use Law (#98)

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Hi, I'm John Co, and welcome to Icons of DC area Real Estate, a one on one interview show highlighting the backgrounds and career trajectory of leading Luminaries in the Washington, DC area real estate market. The purpose of the show is to highlight their backgrounds and their experiences, and some interesting stories about their current business as well as their past, and to cite some things that you might take away, both from educational standpoint as well as lessons learned in the industry and some amusing and sometimes interesting background stories. So I'm hoping that you will enjoy the show. Before I introduce my guest, I'd like to share that both this podcast and the community I started in 2021, called The Iconic Journey in CRE, is now part of a new nonprofit organization with that same name. The new company will offer opportunities for sponsorship to grow the community both in membership and in programs. It also allows you, as listeners, to show your appreciation for this podcast, which has delivered episodes twice monthly since August 2019. With a charitable contribution, transitioning the community and podcast into the nonprofit organization is underway. The community, which is open to commercial real estate professionals between the ages of 25 and 40 years old, is currently up to 65 members and growing. If you would like to learn more about either joining the community or contributing to the podcast, please reach out directly to me at john at coenterprises coenterprases.com. Separately, my private company, Co Enterprises, now will focus only on advisory work for early stage real estate firms and career counseling. If you have interest in learning more about its services, please review my [email protected]. Thank you for listening. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Icons of DC area Real Estate. I'm so pleased to introduce my guest today for today's show is Bob Harris. Bob is a senior counsel and partner with the law firm of Lurch, early and Brewer, located in Bethesda, Maryland. His focus. Jurisdiction is Montgomery County. He's worked with most of the major developers in the county that doing larger mixed use or office commercial projects in the region, as well as some puds in the marketplace as well. Bob started his career back in 1980 after graduating law school at George Washington University. He started in the trucking law business and then moved into land use law when he joined the firm of Wilkes Artists. Hedrick and Lane in Bethesda, then transitioned to Holland and Knight as the practice moved over there the other law firm, and then he joined Laura Churley when Holland and Knight decided to close their Bethesda office and continued on. So he's been in Montgomery County quite a long time in practicing land use law. Bob is very tenacious. He's a go getter. He really understands the legal profession. I met him through the Urban Land Institute, and so he's been very engaged in several third party activities in the community outside of the legal practice. He talked a lot about the Socratic method in law school. He also talked about his fulfillment in zoning law, which he finds he takes pride in because of the properties he's helped engender. And he also realizes that's paying it forward to future generations to see buildings being built based on his efforts. Bob discusses the importance of negotiation in law, dealing with opposing parties, and sometimes even clients themselves. He highlights the increasing complexity of regulations and the burdens they place on development, especially here in Montgomery County when laws are changing and it's getting more challenging to do business. Bob also emphasizes the importance of maintaining strong client relationships and building connections with decision makers and regulators in the community. He shares some anecdotes from his career, highlighting the lessons he learned from them. Bob also loves to give back. As I mentioned earlier, he's committed to his work and finds it mentally stimulating, and he gives back to community in many different ways. And he also set up a scholarship in his son's name at Gonzaga High School where he went. He has the most unique sign, billboard sign answer that I've had so far, where he actually physically put a sign on the beltway when he was in high school, competing against St. John's when he was in Gonzaga. So I thought that was kind of cool as well. So, without further ado, enjoy this wide ranging conversation with Bob Harris. [00:05:33] Speaker B: So. Bob Harris, welcome to Icons of DCRA real estate. Thank you for joining me today. [00:05:39] Speaker C: I'm honored to be your guest. [00:05:41] Speaker B: Thank you. So you are the first land use attorney that I have interviewed for the podcast. Could you describe your role at Lurch, early and Brewer and your focuses day to day? [00:05:53] Speaker C: Bob? I sure can. I'll start, however, with a preparatory remark you like? I have been very active in Uli for a number of years, and a number of years ago they started an annual practice of a lifetime achievement award that they would honor people in the real estate world. I think it was Ben Jacobs who was honored one year, and he know giving me a lifetime achievement award is implying that I'm done and I'm not done. I feel a little bit the same way as that. Being called an icon in real estate when I'm not done is an honor, but it's perhaps an overstatement of my achievements, but I'm happy to launch into it. So. Lord Churley Brewer. Yes, I'm proud to be here at Lord Chirley. I've been here now twelve years. I joined at that time and I was made the practice group leader for the land use group, which was relatively small at that time. I've since passed that torch on to others and now am a senior attorney in a group of twelve land use attorneys, which is an amazing number of people practicing land use. Ten of us in Montgomery County exclusively and two in Prince George's County. That share some in Montgomery County, which is itself a little bit of a statement about land use in Montgomery County. I'm not sure there are that many attorneys practicing 100% land use in the District of Columbia or in Fairfax County. I might be wrong, but it is a statement, perhaps, of the comprehensive nature of our land use practice here, which I think you want to get into that later. We can talk about that later. But I am still active, especially in major matters, the ones that require some heavy lifting. I love that. But at the same time, I have the blessing of working with younger attorneys who are inspired by what the firm has done, what I've done, and they are making their own history now. So I serve as a mentor to them. I'm a historical resource, telling them old man stories about how things were and why things are the way they are. But then the greatest role I have here really is being kind of a strategist or an advisor to the younger attorneys. They knock on my door frequently or now zoom me up on the screen to say, hey, what do you think about this? And it's really cool to be able to provide advice. Like, Great. [00:08:40] Speaker B: That's great. So, Bob, tell us a little bit about your origins, your youth, and what your parents did for you. [00:08:48] Speaker C: Sure, I'm proud of my youth, but it is and my upbringing, but I suspect it's measurably different than most of your guests. I grew up near the University of Maryland. I was one of six kids. I was the second oldest. I had a sister one year older than I. I'll come back to her because that relates to who I am and what I am. But my mom was a stay at home mom. My family was totally blue collar. My father was an auto mechanic by trade. Then later on in life, he became service manager for a Chevrolet dealership. But it was all about cars, and he built our first house with his own. You know, I admired what he did. I never saw anybody come to our house to fix a darn thing, from the dishwasher to the roof to whatever, he fixed it. And I learned from him those things, and I really loved doing it. If you had asked me when I was 16 what I was going to do, I probably would have said, I'm going to be an auto mechanic. And lo and behold, I'm not. Well, not much of one. What I learned from them, though, and this is not exclusive to blue collar people, but hard work. And I see that all around from all kinds of people. My mom raised six kids, zero help. We had no nearby relatives. We didn't hire people to come in and do the cleaning or the cooking or know she did it. And my dad to make extra money to make the ends meet. When he'd get home from his job at the Chevy dealer. Many nights, even in the colder winter, he would be out on our carport fixing one of the neighbor's cars for a few extra bucks. [00:10:55] Speaker B: Wow. [00:10:55] Speaker C: And it inspired me. I learned to work hard from the youngest days. When I was twelve years old, I got a paper route that I worked seven days a week delivering papers and loved it. About the same time, one of my neighbors, his father was a maintenance guy at a hospital and they had extra lawn equipment. And so he arranged for me to go out there. And I bought a small piece of junk riding mower for $3, which I then started lawn mowing in my neighborhood. [00:11:38] Speaker B: There you go. [00:11:39] Speaker C: At twelve years old, making darn good money. I blew it all on candy and stupid stuff, I think, but I was, in my mind, self sufficient when I. [00:11:50] Speaker B: Your parents, supportive of your initiative? [00:11:53] Speaker C: Totally. My parents were not highly instructive in terms of what to do or whatever. Yes. They pushed for academic achievement. They pushed for hard work, but it was more lead by example. [00:12:09] Speaker B: You saw them and said, I'm going to work hard. [00:12:12] Speaker C: Exactly. Exactly. And I admired them. My mother was a voracious reader and she would help me with my writing. And my dad, as I say, was Mr. Fix It. And so I learned how to do all of that. So I was anxious to get a real job. As soon as I turned 16, I got a part time job as a waiter at Hot Chops Restaurant, which was hard work, but it was great. I think the minimum wage at the time was a dollar and a quarter an hour. [00:12:46] Speaker B: Just the one in Bethesda? [00:12:47] Speaker C: No, this one was in Hillendale on New Hampshire Avenue. Right at the beltway. [00:12:51] Speaker B: Sure. [00:12:52] Speaker C: And they gave me great instruction. Marriott was very well run operation and gave me instruction how to do it. So while other friends I had who were getting part time jobs at a dollar and a quarter an hour, I was averaging about $3.50 an hour. Because I was on tips, I only made fifty cents an hour. The minimum wage for tip workers then was fifty cents an hour, and I was making three and 50 or so, which I don't want to get off. This is not our show. But all this stuff about raising the wages for tipped workers just irritates me, because if they're any good at their job, they're making way more than minimum wage. [00:13:31] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:13:35] Speaker C: I did that later on. I had a neighbor who had a construction company, small construction company, and that was going to pay even more than the waiter. So I became an apprentice carpenter and made good money throughout college. [00:13:53] Speaker B: That's great. That's awesome. So the hard work ethic you saw as a child and took it from there. So then you went on to University of Maryland talk about why Maryland? And did you look elsewhere or was that kind of just because you grew up near it, that was your ideal place or what? [00:14:13] Speaker C: Yeah, let me interject one sort of waypoint on that mission to University of Maryland. I grew up in a neighborhood. All my neighbors were going to public schools. My sisters and I and my brother, we all went to the Catholic elementary. [00:14:29] Speaker B: School oh, you did? [00:14:30] Speaker C: On New Hampshire Avenue, St. Camillas. And so that went through 8th grade. But again, all my friends were in junior high school, and they were going to sock hops and all these cool things that they did in the public schools and stuff. And they were my friends. I wanted to be with them. So Catholic high schools start in 9th grade. So I came home and I said that I wanted to go to the local public school with my friends and my older sister, the one a year older than I said, absolutely not. And I had such great respect for her because jumping around here a little bit when she was in kindergarten and I was still at home, she would come home from school and insist that I sit down and she would teach me whatever she learned that day. So that when I started school, I could already read. It gave me huge respect for her, and I listened up 100% of what she said throughout my life. And so when she said, you got to go to Catholic school, and not only are you just going to Catholic school, you're going to Gonzaga, because that's the best I said, yes, Linda, you got it. Okay. So I applied and got in there. [00:15:52] Speaker B: Where did she go? [00:15:53] Speaker C: She went to Regina High school. It's no longer in existence. It's a Catholic girl school that was on Riggs Road in Adelphi. But I followed in her footsteps. In fact, we were academic competitors because I remember when you took the PSAT exam, she did it the year before I did, and she came back, and when she got her score, it was 98 and whatever. I don't remember. [00:16:18] Speaker B: The smart lady. [00:16:20] Speaker C: Yeah, and so I took it, and I got like a 97 or something. [00:16:25] Speaker B: I was peeved. [00:16:29] Speaker C: I wanted to beat her. I couldn't quite do it. So she went to University of Maryland. As I mentioned, we lived so close by there that it was an easy thing to do. And apropos my modest upbringing, I had to pay for 100% of my college. Now, kids can't do that today. College costs have gone up so astronomically. But at that point in time, Maryland was $650 a year. I lived at home because it was nearby there, and so I was able to pay 100% of my own tuition. And I did it by I would work my construction job Tuesdays and Thursdays and Saturdays. I only took classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. If there was a class that was only on Tuesday or Thursday. It didn't matter whether it was the most important class or not. I wasn't taking I'm working and damn know classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and it know. But at University of Maryland, I did take a business law course. I still remember the Professor Bert Leap, and it was so fun that it was my first exposure to law. I didn't know a lawyer. I never needed a lawyer. No lawyers in my family, very few college graduates in an extended family. But I was intrigued by the business law course. I didn't do anything about it at the time, but it kind of stuck in the back of my mind. [00:18:02] Speaker B: What part of that course fascinated you? Because that's a diverse practice there. So was there an aspect of it you remember that? Was it contracts? Was it torts? Was it property? What was it that fascinated you the most? [00:18:18] Speaker C: Contracts, primarily, but the overall fact that there is a law for everything and there's a right and a wrong. It's not like science ethics, where there are different ways to look at something. Not so much. [00:18:38] Speaker B: Anyway, the ethics interested you. [00:18:41] Speaker C: Yeah, it did. And I don't know if I was argumentative at the time. I certainly have become that over the years in my profession. [00:18:51] Speaker B: Your job. Exactly. [00:18:54] Speaker C: But I did like the fact that somebody's right and somebody's wrong in almost everything. It was just kind of fun learning about property rights, adverse possession, of course. Wait a minute. It wasn't your land, but you used it for 20 years and nobody objected. It's yours now. Whoa, that is so cool. [00:19:24] Speaker B: How about the history of property law, too, going back to England? It's fascinating. [00:19:30] Speaker C: It really is. Yeah, it really tells what our country is about. And we've got some dark spots on our resume, of course, but one of the bright spots is our inheritance of British common law, which really is built on the Greeks and the Romans, even history. [00:19:55] Speaker B: So business law. Fascinating. So then that triggered the law school interest. [00:20:00] Speaker C: Yeah, although apropos, my reverse background law school didn't happen immediately. Okay, well, I'll confess now. Well, I've confessed before as well. I wasn't a great student in college. Okay. Because, number one, I was working a lot. Number two, I was partying a lot. [00:20:22] Speaker B: Maryland had that. [00:20:24] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I did spend a few hours in the Route One scene, and. [00:20:31] Speaker B: There were dorms there that were well known for partying there. [00:20:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I had a good time in college, but maybe too good a time, but so I didn't have good grades, and I wasn't inspired. I just wanted to get out and make some money. So I took a job as a salesman for the National Brewing Company out of Baltimore. Oh, sure. I was a local salesman here in the it was a great time. I was doing crazy things like racing dirt bikes at the time, and playing rugby, and it was party time, but a couple of years of that and I said, Wait a minute, Bob, wake up, wake up. This is not a long term path. You need to do more. And my older sister, the inspiration of my life as much as my parents, had been out of college a few years. And she called me up one day, said, hey, guess what, Bob? I decided to apply to law school and I'm going to start law school in the fall. I said, Whoa, that's a cool idea. I remember business law. It was really fun. Do you think I could do it? Absolutely. So I applied to law school. I got in and decided, I'm going to make something in my life. I'm not just going to drink beer and party all the know because of my uncertainty about whether I was going to succeed at that effort or not. I applied to the University of Baltimore because, number one, it was relatively easy to get into. She had gone there as well, and it was inexpensive, and paying for it myself was a key factor. After her first year there, she transferred to Catholic University because she wanted to go to a better school. No discredit. The University of Baltimore. And so after my first year, I was fourth in my class, ranked fourth in my class that year. And I said, you got this. And so I applied to GW to transfer there. That way I would be able to work close to home. I was living in Hyattville at the and they gave me a half scholarship as well to attend so I could afford it, and it worked out amazingly well. That's great. [00:23:36] Speaker B: Did you look at, like, Maryland has a law school, don't they? [00:23:40] Speaker C: They do have a law school, but that's in Baltimore. And again, I was living in. So one year of commuting up there, I put up with. But the other thing is, you never know where life's going to take you. I got married after my first year of law school, and then if that wasn't enough of a change, I had a child after the second year of law school. [00:24:05] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. [00:24:06] Speaker C: Law school, as you know, is three years. So I'm in the middle of my law school career, and along comes our first son that I'm working as a law clerk at a law firm downtown, trying to support our family. My wife was in architecture school at the time at Catholic University and really wanted to become an architect. She continued in architecture school for about six months after our son was born. And I would stay up late at night. Architecture students, I don't know if you know how they do it, but they have projects. They build models out of Styrofoam and all that stuff, or at least they did then. Now it's probably all on a computer, but I would finish my law school reading late in the evening, and then she and I cut styrofoam and make models until the wee hours. Wow. That went on for a little while, and we both said, this isn't going to work. She volunteered to give up her education so that I could go on, and it's worked out amazingly well. [00:25:18] Speaker B: That's great. So you left GW, and then how did you enter the law practice? [00:25:27] Speaker C: Yeah, so as I mentioned, I was working as a law clerk at a law firm downtown in law school. And they did, or at least the group with which I was associated, did transportation law. Back then, trucking companies needed to get certificates of convenience and necessity from the Interstate Commerce Commission, and they were regulated by the ICC. Complaints were brought against them when something went wrong, and that sort of thing. And so the group I was with did transportation law, and so once I graduated, they offered me a regular attorney job there, which I needed a job. Of course, I took it immediately, and I did that for about four years. But the clients I was representing were trucking companies all over the country, and I rarely saw a client. Communications were by fax or phone or letter. The work I was doing was not at all visible to me or to anybody else. It was getting them a certificate of public convenience and necessity so they could all widgets from Spokane to Portland or, you know, it paid the bills, but it wasn't real rewarding. And about that same time, I don't know if you remember the magazine regardies. [00:26:52] Speaker B: Oh, sure. Bill Rigardi. [00:26:54] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you may recall every year Bill would publish an issue of I forget whether it's the 50 or the 100 wealthiest people in the Washington area, and there'd be a little blurb about each one of them. And I read it several years while I was doing this trucking law. And when I looked at it, I said, you know, this is interesting. Almost every one of these people, that's one of the wealthiest people either made their money in real estate or they invested it in real estate after they made it. And I said, those are good clients. That's what I want to do. [00:27:37] Speaker B: What year was this, Bob? Do you know? [00:27:40] Speaker C: Well, I graduated in 1980, and so that would have been 81, 80 or so. [00:27:47] Speaker B: Market was just coming to life. Well, more just really exploding. [00:27:54] Speaker C: Eighty s. Yeah, exactly. That's what I wanted to do. But there were no opportunities right then, and I couldn't jeopardize my existing job. My son needed to be fed, so I stayed at that for about four years. [00:28:16] Speaker B: Before we move on to the next thing, talk a little bit about law school and what did that help you learn while you were there? I've always heard the phrase, you got to learn how to think like a lawyer. Talk a little bit about what that means to you. [00:28:37] Speaker C: At least that is a phrase, and I'll jump into the bottom line. I would recommend law school to anyone who has the time and the finances to do it, even if you don't want to be a lawyer at GW. I remember one year I don't remember which of the years it was they took a survey, and of my class, half the people said they did not have any intention of practicing law. Interesting, which boggled my mind to think people are investing that kind of time and money, but they're not going to practice law. Of course, in Washington, a lot of them go into politics and that sort of thing, of course. But as well, a lot of them become management firm JBG. We're all lawyers. [00:29:27] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, a lot of business people that are trained by law in law. [00:29:34] Speaker C: Exactly. So, as you may know, law school teaching, at least back in the Stone Age when I went to law school, was largely the Socratic method. [00:29:48] Speaker B: Socrates. [00:29:49] Speaker C: Okay. Socrates taught by asking questions, and one question was answered that would invite a follow up question to dig more deeply into what the topic was, to challenge the conclusions the person makes in the first question to the answer to the first question, and to mold it into a truly defensible position. And I knew who Socrates was. I'd never heard of the Socrates method of learning, but it was very inspirational to me, and I guess it was always in me, even when I was drinking beer on Route One. But it was me. [00:30:36] Speaker B: I found curiosity is another part of it. [00:30:39] Speaker C: Absolutely. Your mind is working all the time. Of course. It teaches you, number one, how to research something. And that was all. Of course, before you could just Google something, you had to go into a library and really do old fashioned research. It taught you the importance of precedent. Again, back to English common law. What a court decides one year is the law that applies to things. Following that, it taught you how to think very critically, challenge your own self, challenge others. It taught you how to find a way to prove something. You may believe X or Y or Z, but just believing it isn't going to get anybody anywhere. You need to prove why X, Y, or Z are appropriate and be willing to fight for it. So all of those were, it turned out, to be innate talents that I didn't know I had but emerged through law school. [00:31:47] Speaker B: That's great. That's awesome. [00:31:50] Speaker C: One little side story of that. I love to tell this story, because one of my professors in law school was a professor named John Banzaff, who, like many law professors, was really full of himself. But some years before I had been in law school, he had organized a group of law students to challenge a new environmental law, and they filed suit. It ultimately went up to the US. Supreme Court and got decided, okay, really? Yes. And scrap. Scrap. I forget what the initials stand for, but in any respect, he was immensely proud of it. And midway through the semester, he announces, okay, next session we're going to discuss the scrap lawsuit that some students and I handled a few years ago. And so I said, okay, you may or may not know this. Of course all law cases are or all appellate cases basically are reported and published in law books that live forever. [00:32:52] Speaker B: Sure. [00:32:52] Speaker C: Supreme Court cases are published in a couple of different editions. At least they were then. I think they still are. One was the Supreme Court lawyers edition, and in the lawyer's edition reports, not only was the case reported, but they would have a summary of the briefs that all the parties submitted, and they published them. So he said, we're going to discuss the scrap suit next session. I said that's cool. So I went to the library. I pulled out the Supreme Court lawyer's edition. I looked at his brief, and I read it, and the next day, the next class, we go into class, okay, so he know, on what grounds did this case win? Or how did we win this case? And told me, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, which was right in what we had to read in class. And he said, okay, now here's the question. What other arguments might you advance? And I raised my hand. I said, Well, I would argue A and B and C, which I've gotten from reading this brief brief. You are exactly right, like the hero of the class. And all it was was that I figured out how to get the answer ahead of time, and I felt damn good about that and whatever. I never told him that I read that. So I left him thinking that I was nearly as brilliant as he is. [00:34:25] Speaker B: If he were smart enough, he would have said, I know where you got exactly. [00:34:30] Speaker C: And he may have, but he wasn't willing to reveal it to his colleagues. [00:34:35] Speaker B: Yes. That's great. So you were four years with the Trucking Law firm and then decided, this is not for me. So what kind of redirected you you looked at regardees and you said, I like real estate. So where did you go from there with that thought process? [00:34:58] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay, so you are aware that I was at Wilkes Artists for a number of years, and we'll maybe get into that a little bit more detail, but that firm was founded, I think in 1926, and if you know anything about zoning law, you'll know that it was in the 1920s. I don't remember the exact date that the City of Euclid case was decided. This was Euclid, Ohio, and they had passed a zoning ordinance, and property owners opposed it because they said it was taking away property rights. And the US. Supreme Court ruled that the city. Of Euclid's zoning case was not a deprivation of property without compensation, that it was a justifiable power for the local government. Well, immediately after that, because cities were growing and they were putting factories next to homes and all kinds of other things, cities throughout the country immediately adopted zoning ordinances. [00:35:56] Speaker B: That was the first zoning ordinance in the country. [00:35:59] Speaker C: Ohio? Well, no, there were some before that, but that was one that was challenged, and so it verified the legitimacy of a zoning ordinance. [00:36:09] Speaker B: Interesting. Okay. [00:36:10] Speaker C: I think Montgomery County's zoning ordinance, by the way, was adopted in 1928, the first one. But in any respect at that time, DC. Has something they call the Corporation Council's office. It's like the county attorney's office or whatever. There was a young attorney there named Jim Wilkes who helped to write the zoning ordinance for the DC. Government, and his wheels were even better turning than mine. Having written the zoning ordinance, as folklore has it, he decided, Wait a minute. There might be some money to be made in this. And so he and another person from the Corporation Council's office actually two others, started their own law firm, wilkes, Mcgarrigue, and Artis, and began doing zoning law. Now, back then, lawyers did everything. And so then there wasn't enough zoning law to go around, but they were pioneers in zoning law. Then. When World War II wound down, as, you know, Washington, DC. Caught know there were so many government jobs here that had grown out of the war, et cetera, the DC. Region was growing by leaps and bounds. [00:37:30] Speaker B: Well, the new deal just exploded. Washington just the war. It was incredible. [00:37:38] Speaker C: Absolutely. It was night and day in terms of real estate development. And so their work started to grow. They hired a man who had just gotten out of the army named Norman Glasgow to build their zoning. So from his first day on there, he specialized in zoning and land use. He did it in DC. Primarily because that's where most of the work was. But because he lived in Maryland, he was doing work in Maryland as well. He got Geico, their first approval in 1955 for their building in Friendship Heights. He got still there for Sachs, Fifth Avenue for a lot of this stuff montgomery Village, et cetera. So he had become a force. Well, I mentioned earlier that I got married after my first year of law school. What I didn't mention is that her name was Glasgow. [00:38:39] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:38:43] Speaker C: And so at about the time that I was really getting turned on by Bill Regardi's real estate article, and I knew I had a connection with a firm that did zoning on land use. I approached him about getting a job. Well, they had had some attorneys who joined the firm earlier who did not didn't really pan out, nepotism hires, okay. Sons of partners. And so they were apprehensive about any relationship coming in, and he was hesitant too. He didn't want know burn his own bridge. But eventually my wife's mother convinced him that I was the man. And coincidentally, Works Artists had had a series of efforts to open an office in Montgomery County which never panned out. The person they would hire to open the office would be there a year or two and then would move on and not do something. So Norman Glasgow came to me and said, look, here's the deal. I know you. My wife has vouched for you. You're a hard worker. We want to open a new office for workshops artists in Bethesda. But we don't want somebody who's going to be here one year and gone the next. So you got to commit to me that you're the man. I said you got So they hired me. I had to take a cut in pay to do the job because I didn't know anything about zoning and land use. They said, we'll teach you. We know everything about it. So I started a new office for Wokes Artists in Bethesda in 1986. I was the only attorney there. Fortunately, through the firm's good graces, their presence, et cetera, I was able to grow that firm to 15 attorneys by 2001. Most of us did land use work. There were some of us doing transactional work. Some of us, you may know Eric Kasov doing real estate tax appeal work. And we were rocking and rolling. It was just a great experience. [00:41:06] Speaker B: That's great. And so you were there for how long at will? [00:41:10] Speaker C: Sardis until 2001. By that point in time, national firms were building platforms in DC, holland and Knight being one of them. Holland and Knight had gobbled up a number of other real estate transactions, practices in the area. Other big firms, national platforms were coming in. Till that point in time, land use had always been strictly local. Not that it isn't still, but they were starting to attract people. Well, they hired away from Wilkes Artists the then head of the land use group, Wayne Quinn, and then a couple of other people left to go to some to Holland, Knight, some to other big firms. And so the land use group, not unanimously, but generally concluded, hey, wait a minute. Local land use practice may not be where it is. Maybe we need to be on a big platform. And so everybody except for the real estate tax people that were part of Wilkes Artists agreed to join Holland and Knight. And I was among them, along with the other attorneys whom I'd hired in Bethesda. So we jumped ship to Holland a night. [00:42:37] Speaker B: So let me back up before we go further on that transition to the choice between land use and transactional law and kind of I guess it was more of a guide because of the Norman Glasgow influence to go into land use. Or was that before that, that you got into land use side of the legal profession. [00:43:00] Speaker C: It was really part of know, a function of his inspiration and the opportunity and in part Bill regardi's inspiration. But I quickly found out that and I learned this better in retrospect than I did understand it prospectively, but it turned out that zoning law was the perfect for me, I think. I'm not sure I would have made it as a litigator. While I can deal with adversity, I don't want to be arguing with somebody every day of the week or whatever. I don't think I could have been a transactional attorney because looking at documents all day doesn't float my boat the way looking at architecture does. [00:43:50] Speaker B: Or drafting. [00:43:51] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. So what I found about zoning law, and this is why I would advocate the practice to anybody with any of the ingredients that I think I have is there are multiple factors. One, you're part of history. You're creating the future that your children and maybe your grandchildren and maybe somebody 100 years later will see. I look out my window and I see the Chevy Chase Bank headquarters building at the corner of New Hampshire Wisconsin Avenue and East West Highway. I remember when the Hot shelf was there, and I remember when the owners of the Hotshots property came to me and said, hey, we want to do something more. And working with them and some creative developers, we were able to get that bank building approved there. I look at the community of Falls Grove in Rockville. I look at Bethesda Row in Bethesda. All of these things are projects where I had a hand. It was not my idea in any respect. I was not even the principal brains behind any of them, but I was the vehicle that enabled each of them to happen. And I can drive by them today. And I take pride in seeing what I did. I wouldn't have gotten that out of a transactions practice, and I definitely wouldn't have gotten it out of a litigation practice. The other parts of working in this field are that the clients that I represent, these folks are entrepreneurs of first order. I'm not a risk taker other than riding motorcycles and skydiving and skiing, still at my advance. [00:45:36] Speaker B: Those are significant risks. [00:45:37] Speaker C: Yeah. They're just not financial risks. Right from the time I was twelve, I worked too hard for my dollars to gamble them. Okay? But the clients I have, these folks are riverboat gamblers of first order. Okay? They know what they're doing, but they're risking great money and they're doing it in part. On my analysis, I still remember a client came to me. Well, I think I can tell this. The Falls Grove project. I mentioned Eya, Polti, JPI and Lerner. The Thomas farm was on the market. Riggs bank was trying to sell it. I think it was 150 acres or whatever, but it was being sold out of an estate. And as you may know, most estates, they don't want contingent contracts. You buy it, you got it. And so they had this property on the market as is, whereas these folks decided they liked it. We spent a while analyzing it, and they asked me, okay, the master plan and zoning call for X, I think it was like 700 homes and a bunch of office space. And they said, we don't want to do that. We want 1500 homes and we want way less office space because that's what we think the market is. Do you think we can get there? And so we spent a lot of time analyzing. I spent a lot of time analyzing. They said, okay, Bob, what's your advice? I said, I think we can get there. They spent $42 million to buy that property because I told them I thought they could get 1500 homes there through the zoning process. And I don't know if they didn't sleep that night, but I know I didn't. And I know there were many nights after that that I woke up and said, Holy cow, you better deliver on this. And lo and behold, we did just. [00:47:43] Speaker B: For the listener's benefit. Art Fusillo, who is the principal for Learner that handled that transaction, talked about it in his episode as well. [00:47:51] Speaker C: Podcast, the Falls Grove transaction, that was the first time I'd worked with Art, and it was a great experience, but I was able to work with Bob Young and tob, again, another one of your interviewees. [00:48:03] Speaker B: Bob also talked about it as well. [00:48:04] Speaker C: Yeah, and Bob and I had worked on other projects before that, but we worked on that together. And the other people it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. [00:48:19] Speaker B: It's unique to get developers of that caliber altogether to come to make a deal like that. [00:48:26] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Developers, major players, developers are normally independent thinkers, and they want the whole enchilada. They don't want half the enchilada. But because this was contemplated and best suited for a mix of uses EY didn't do multifamily. Lerner did a variety of things, but they didn't do single family. Really. So they wound up with the retail and the office. JPI wound up with the multifamily. Pulte wound up with the single families and Eyed did the towns. [00:48:59] Speaker B: Yep. And it worked out great. Project sold out quickly. I actually financed two of the townhouse soldiers myself with cool, great guy named Greg Cox, who was the overall manager of the community. [00:49:13] Speaker C: Sure, I know Greg. Yeah. It was a pleasure working with him on yeah, yeah. So that was would I'm an absolute spokesperson for land use work in the legal profession. I love it. [00:49:29] Speaker B: So each lawyer at a law firm has a set group of clients. Talk about why lawyers form a firm with multiple disciplines. Is it one stop shopping or is it for collaborative situations to help clients? [00:49:42] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a good question. And your question implies the answer, which is part of the answer. You're right. Clearly a law firm benefits from collective knowledge and collaboration. We at Lurch Early now have twelve land use attorneys. Those attorneys do 100% land use work, okay? But each of us has different thought processes. Each of us has different experiences. Each of us has different clients. And so we regularly will ask each other, hey, anybody have an idea about this? Here's my issue. I want to get a conditional use approval, but I need a site plan. Do you have any idea, any experiences where that's been done in this sequence? And so collectively, we come up with a well informed assessment of how to do things and it works extremely well. There's also the benefit of the recognition factor, okay? When you have twelve attorneys doing something, the name Lurch Early gets out there, okay? And even if my name might not be associated with it, lurch early is. So clients will sometimes look up who's the biggest law firm or biggest land use practice in the area. Or they'll go on Google and they'll look up and they'll say, oh, look at this. These folks have twelve attorneys. So even if they don't know me, they may contact us. But just as likely they'll look in there and they'll see something about me and put two and two together. And so I benefit from that, as do the other people on the other side of the equation. The regulators, the decision makers take notice as well. They know that we know what we're doing. We're not making stuff up. We're basing our advice and positions on precedent. And so I think we get a little bit better recognition by the regulator and the staff people than if we were just a sole practitioner out there. All that works as well. And then, as you said, the one stop shop kind of thing. We've got other practices here transactions, real estate finance, condominium and HOA law, et cetera. And it's clearly beneficial to a lawyer to be able to bring in client X and do land use work and say, hey Mr. X, you're going to need to set up a condo association for this. I got a partner who can do that for you. And it works to everybody's advantage, so that works. But at the same time, we feel it's our obligation to serve the industry because of our size. We have somebody covering virtually every legislative change versus virtually every policy document that is being discussed, virtually every issue that's being debated. And so we represent the industry, if you will, in carrying forward ideas, opposing ideas, and supporting good ideas in those respects. And I've got several that are going on right now like that. So we take because we're a big firm, but we give because we're a big firm as well. [00:53:09] Speaker B: Do you often advocate and support legislation from the get go? [00:53:15] Speaker C: Absolutely. In fact, that's one of the lessons I've learned in land use law that I didn't really learn in law school, and that is that there's more than one way to skin a cat. There's more than one way to get to success. Okay. Sometimes it's by coloring inside the lines. Law says ABCD and E. If you can do ABC and D and E, then your path is paved. But if you want to do ABCD and F, that's a little something different. And so sometimes you can convince the decision makers that an F looks like an E, and therefore you can do it. Other times, you may need to say, look, the law is wrong. It should say ABCD and E or F, and you get the law changed. [00:54:11] Speaker B: Right. [00:54:12] Speaker C: And so, yes, we do that frequently. [00:54:17] Speaker B: And you make a case based on how the situation has changed such that you need to adapt to how the situation fits into the current market, let's say. [00:54:31] Speaker C: Exactly right. Markets are not static. The climate is not static. Transportation is not static. Needs are not static. And so the law can't be static. [00:54:46] Speaker B: So let's now go back to your transition career wise. You talked about going from Wilkes Artists into Holland, Knight, and you were there for quite a long time also. So talk about what happened with Holland and Knight and what transitioned there and how that evolved. [00:55:10] Speaker C: Sure. I was there from 2001 to 2011, ten years. Exactly. The Holland and I platform has proven to be very good for the zoning attorneys who practiced in DC. DC. Is a big market. All the projects pretty much are big projects. A lot of times they're done by companies outside of the area, and having the presence in Dallas, in New York or whatever brings them clients from those places that do that. My assessment, however, over time became that that was not so much true in Montgomery County. Okay. Our projects are smaller by nature. Not always. They are more often local developers than out of towners. And eventually those of us who were practicing. The way I put it to other people at one time was, which of these is not like the other? New York City, London, Beijing, and Bethesda. Well, Hananite had offices in New York City, London, Beijing, and a bunch of. [00:56:38] Speaker B: Other cities, and we had this little. [00:56:40] Speaker C: Outpost in Bethesda, and it just was not like the just the bureaucracy did not support our practice. We had constraints about what fees we could charge, what size cases to take. Et just it's a great firm, and they have a great presence in DC. I still know a number of the attorneys there that I like, but it just wasn't appropriate for Bethesda. And if you look around, you see that the land use attorneys practicing in the suburbs, by and large, are smaller. [00:57:23] Speaker B: Local firms and very focused on their specific jurisdictions. [00:57:27] Speaker C: Exactly right. It's a highly specialized practice, and it just calls for locality. [00:57:37] Speaker B: Interesting. So you talked about Lerchurley and why you've joined them and how they've grown. One of the things I wanted to talk a little bit about, I'll maybe relate to it personally because when I moved here in 1985 to my neighborhood, I live in Chibby Chase View, Maryland, which is just north of the Beltway. My next door neighbor at the time I moved in was a fellow by the name of Bob Metz. And Bob was a senior partner at Linnoson Blocker, which at the time, when I came here was known supposedly as the leading land use attorney land use firm in the county at that time because of Joe Blocker and Bob Linos being pioneers in the land use space, at least in the county at the time. Although you cited in an email earlier to me that they weren't necessarily the first. So maybe, you know, elaborate on that a little. [00:58:43] Speaker C: Right. So Lenozenbacher, sadly no longer in existence, definitely was a land use leader in Montgomery County, Bob Lenos. And, you know, I think both came out of the county attorney's office. I'm thinking they might have formed the firm in the early sixty s or something like that. I don't really recall. But they built a very significant real estate practice platform in Montgomery County. But they were not the first, as I mentioned earlier, Wilkes Artists, to my knowledge, was the first zoning specialized firm starting 50 years earlier or 60 years early almost. And they did work in Montgomery County, but not to the same level as Leno's and Blocker. Leno's really set the bar. They hired great people. You mentioned bob Metz, Bob Dalrumple, John Delaney. I really knew them much better than I knew Bob Leno's or Joe Blocker. But they were all the senior statesmen in the land use bar in. And, you know, I learned a lot by watching them. But over the years, people there, lawyers change firms with some degree of regularity. Not every firm is built for everybody. Over the years, I actually hired six or seven different people from Leonard's and Blocker who came to me. I wasn't outrading anybody, but they came to me and wanted a different environment and they stayed with me, every one of them, until they retired. So it was good, but great respect for Leonard's and Blocker at the same time. At least at one time, they had great respect for me. My little side story here, my brother in law many years ago this would have been probably in the mid 1980s was at lunch in Silver Spring, a restaurant, kind of a hole in the wall called the Quarry House on George Avenue. And Leonard's and Blocker's office, of course, were in Silver Spring at the time. [01:00:54] Speaker B: Right. [01:00:54] Speaker C: And my brother in law was there for lunch one day and he's just having his lunch and he hears this group of guys at a table next to him talking, and one of them mentions the name Bob Harris. So his ears perk up completely. He quit eating his burger or whatever it was and totally eavesdropped on the conversation and the conversation. Basically, know this guy, Bob Harris. He's really starting to eat into our a. He's a force to be reckoned with here. My brother in law reports that to me that evening. I said, oh, that that is so cool. Oh, man, I'm a hero. [01:01:38] Speaker B: That's funny, Bob. [01:01:40] Speaker C: It was great. And years later, one of the attorneys at Leno's did come to me, and he said he wanted to talk with me about maybe joining their at. I think I was still at works artists then. Maybe I was works artists. So I agreed to meet with him just to hear what he had to say. But I don't know if you know the hole in the wall called Hank Diedles on? Yeah, well, it's a little less of a hole in the wall now that they've rebuilt it and it's fire. Yeah, right. But it was a total hole in the wall then pool table and beer. Oh, yeah, I remember all that. So I said, okay, I'll agree to meet with you. But I didn't want to meet with him anywhere where I might be seen by somebody that might report on me. So I said, let's meet at Hank Diedels. [01:02:34] Speaker B: Did you show up on your leathers and your helmets? [01:02:39] Speaker C: We met at Hank Dietels to talk about whether I wanted to join their firm or not. In the end, I listened, but I did not have an interest in it, and we both went our own ways. [01:02:51] Speaker B: So what do you think makes a good land use attorney? What sets apart outstanding counsels from the pack? [01:03:01] Speaker C: Yeah, you got to live in your client's skin, I think I said, I'm not an entrepreneur. I'm not a risk taker. I'm not going to gamble my money, but my clients are. But I think the land use attorney has to feel the same way as the person who's putting the money out there. You need to really step into their shoes. You need to be thinking about their issues all the time. I mean, there are many times to this day where I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll have a thought. I keep a tab of paper next to my bed so I can write down my thought, because too many times in the past, I had what I thought was a brilliant thought. And I'd wake up in the morning, I said, what the hell was that brilliant thought? And it's gone now, I will confess, although I write them down now and believe in the middle of the night that it's a brilliant thought. I get up in the morning, I look at it. It's not so brilliant, but enough of them are good thoughts. But I am always thinking about the client and how I can win their case for them, how I can advise them on what to do, and that includes counseling the client. Not just the client says, I want to get from A to B. Okay, I'm your guy. Let's go. Get to B. Sometimes you need to say, Wait a minute, b might not work. We might have to go for a prime. Okay. And here's why. And so sometimes I'm convincing the regulators, the staff, people of what should be done, and other times, when I feel justified, I'm convincing the client that they need to think a little differently. So again, it's living in their skin. Okay. [01:05:04] Speaker B: You've excelled in your practice. Do you have a credo for your practice and your relationship with your clients? [01:05:15] Speaker C: Not that I can think of, really? Other than treating them the way I mentioned and really put my heart and soul into their objective, not so much. I'll be honest. While I loved drinking beer on Route One many years ago, I'm not a party guy. I'm not a lunch guy. Let's say. I don't take clients out to lunch very often. I don't really socialize with my clients. You play golf with them? Not to the country club level or anything. I play golf sometimes. By the way, Art Fisillo and Bob Young and Tob took us all down to Tampa to play golf for three or four days when we succeeded on the Falls Grove case, which was a great experience, but not so much. I'm kind of a nose to the grindstone guy coming from my blue collar booth. [01:06:18] Speaker B: Your origins? [01:06:19] Speaker C: Yeah. I would typically get in the office by seven or 730 in the morning and not leave till six at night and work Saturday mornings because I wanted to put the best product out there. I hope my clients respect that. I think the proof is in the pudding that the practice I've built over the years does say that they appreciate that and they don't necessarily need to play golf with me or have lunch with me to appreciate that. [01:06:51] Speaker B: So negotiation is a key element in both real estate law and business. What tactics have you learned in quality negotiations? How has this set you apart from others in your career? [01:07:06] Speaker C: Okay, I don't know if this sets me apart from others in my career, but I think I can put together an answer as far as how I approach this, as I was briefly mentioning a moment ago. Well, let me start with this. Part of the negotiation in land use is negotiating with the regulators, the staff members, et cetera, who have the job of approving or denying your application. Frequently their thoughts are going to be somewhat different than the client's thoughts. Sometimes they're totally different than the client's thoughts. But in either respect, the negotiation has to be to massage their thinking, to help them. I'll call it improve their thinking about the project. From your perspective, why is this really going to be better for affordable housing? Why is it going to be better to tear down an old 1930s apartment building with 100 units in it, no air conditioning, no sprinklers, but modest rents, and put up a new building of 400 units where 15% of them are going to be moderately priced dwelling units, et cetera. So you need to your word negotiation. You need to negotiate with them and convince them that there are different perspectives than theirs. At the same time, you need to negotiate with the opposition frequently. Land use cases face opposition, and some of it is dogmatic opposition, where your opposition people don't even want to listen. They know what they know and they're just going to fight. But as frequently as not in Montgomery County, where we have a well educated population, by and large, you can reason with them and you can explain to them why what you want to do is better or admittedly, change what you want to do to address their concerns. That happens frequently. So call that negotiation, if you will. That's fine. And then thirdly, as I mentioned, the third party with whom you have to negotiate sometimes is the client. The client wants to build X, and X is just going to be too big. You need X minus one if you want to succeed, and you need to convince them. Some clients are very good about that. Eya totally gets that. They figure out how to get to the finish line, even if it's not exactly in the same place as the finish line they envisioned when they started. Others are more difficult. It's negotiation from a different perspective than negotiating a contract or negotiating a litigation settlement. But it's negotiation. Yes. [01:10:10] Speaker B: Sure. So what do you see as the biggest challenges today in real estate law in general? [01:10:19] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I long for the 1928 Montgomery County Zoning Ordinance. That zoning ordinance was about ten pages long. I have it over here on my shelf. I could give you the exact pages, but it's about ten pages long. The current zoning ordinance is about 300 pages long. Okay? And that's just the zoning ordinance. Add to that we've got impact taxes and transfer taxes, energy taxes. Now we have to address forest and stormwater management. We have to address pedestrian and bicycle development in Montgomery County. Now has to ensure a stress free pedestrian and bicycle environment around. So and some of these requirements are highly subjective in nature. Other of them are imposed with some rigidity and don't even get me started on rent control. The costs and burdens of our progressive government in Montgomery County, while well intentioned, are causing adverse implications in development. Some might like to blame the developers and the builders for the high cost of housing. I don't think that's the case. I don't think their profit margins are any bigger now than they were in 1950. Okay? The base on which they're building their profit margin is hugely different. And when my house was built, the county paid. For road improvements in the area. That hasn't been the case for 30 years now since we passed our local air transportation review guidelines and our annual growth policy. So all of that is now on the shoulders of the development community, along with numerous other things. [01:12:22] Speaker B: You didn't talk about the master plan process either, which is interesting. [01:12:27] Speaker C: Well, yeah, let's talk about that because in Montgomery County here, we have a very sophisticated and I'll say a good land use approval process with a number of qualifications or footnotes. Okay. We developed a countywide master plan in 1962 with the Wedges and Corridors plan that laid out basically how the county was going to be developed. It was done throughout the region, but Montgomery County is the only jurisdiction that followed it with any degree of rigidity and still does today. [01:13:07] Speaker B: Wasn't that the year the Capitol Beltway opened? Basically 1962. [01:13:12] Speaker C: It opened about that age in Virginia. I still remember riding my minibike when I was a kid on the Maryland portion. That would have been about 1965 that it opened in Maryland. But about the same time, that plan gave way to a whole series of comprehensive plans that we have throughout the county that we update basically once every 20 years. That started out as 15 page documents and now are 200 page documents again, they've grown to be more burdens than inspirations. [01:13:52] Speaker B: Yes, we need oh, that's interesting. [01:13:56] Speaker C: We need to paint a picture so that everybody doesn't just go off on their own, and the government needs to be able to plan for public facilities, et cetera, that relate to what's happening. But when we get carried away to the point where we're saying that you have to have a front porch on a house or that you can't have a garage door facing the street, the garage should be in the back of the house, I have great problems with that because architecture yeah, it's architecture. What you like in architecture, I may not like. I mean, I live in Potomac. I drive up River Road, and some of these new mansions that they're building, they're gaudy to me, that's not my architecture. But somebody's paying five to $10 million to build those babies, so somebody likes them. So who is it to me to say you can't build that kind of architecture? [01:14:55] Speaker B: Right. [01:14:55] Speaker C: So I have great problems with know, some of the additional regulatory burdens are well placed. Yes, we've got environmental issues that we have to deal with. When Longfont designed the city of DC, he didn't care about creeks. Fill in Tiber Creek, fill in the mall, whatever. You can't do that today with good justification. But there again, some of that gets carried away. Trees regrow. We've got more trees in Montgomery County now than we did 100 years ago. [01:15:27] Speaker B: That's interesting. I didn't know that. [01:15:30] Speaker C: Look at some of the aerial photographs. It's great. Yeah. Look at the town of Chevy Chase or village of Chevy Chase. If you have an error, you can't see a thing. That was all farm fields 100 years ago. [01:15:42] Speaker B: Okay, interesting. [01:15:43] Speaker C: A little more than 100, I guess. But anyway, I personally believe that some of these regulations, while well intentioned, are overly restrictive and definitely overly costly to development. [01:15:59] Speaker B: So you lead or led your local practice, I believe, consequently, you might have the luxury of choosing your client base and turn down some business that you decide isn't worth the aggravation. How do you discern your clients, and how do you guide your colleagues in this process? [01:16:17] Speaker C: That is one of the benefits of being a senior attorney rather than the kid who's starting to learn land use practice in 1986. In 1986, I'd have represented Genghis Khan. If he came and wanted to do something, it didn't matter. I needed the job, I needed the work. Over the years, I had experiences with the Genghis Khans of the real estate world, and they weren't fun experiences. Right. So, in all honesty, there are some people where I'm just not going to represent them. Okay. And we certainly won't get into names on that. But of course, there are others who I'd rather not represent, but I'm enough with them that I'm okay with the firm doing it. So I can delegate those cases to somebody else and not punish myself in that. But I like to evaluate every potential case on several grounds. First of all, how realistic is their idea? Are they trying to build an upside down pyramid on a swamp? No, I'm not dead. Forget it. My time is too short. We're not doing that. But if their idea is realistic, even if challenging okay, let's go to the next step. I want to make sure that the client understands the costs and the risks. I'm very upfront about things. I probably chased some work away that I didn't have to by scaring somebody with telling them what lies ahead. But I'd rather scare them away with what lies ahead than be told two years into the project, you didn't tell us this, and now we're pregnant. So I like to do that. As I've mentioned a couple of times, I want to make sure that the client understands the importance of flexibility, that they need to be flexible, as well as the government being flexible. Very few people get 100% of what they want in life. Trump likes to believe that he does, but he's finding out now that that's not necessarily true. That all goes into selecting and advising the clients. But there are clients whom I've represented. Some of the names I've mentioned already today are people I love to represent, because I don't even have to inquire as to those issues that I mentioned. I already know they're there. And let's go full speed ahead if you want to do something. I'm in. [01:19:02] Speaker B: Have you ever represented somebody that you didn't really want to? But the issue that they brought to the table was so important from a public policy standpoint or that you thought was really needed to be advocated, you went ahead and took the case anyway just to push that issue forward. Just out of curiosity. [01:19:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I hadn't really thought about that. I'm sure that's the case because, again, from the time I got bitten by the law bug in college and then in law school, I'm intrigued by being right, if you will. Sure. If the law says I can do something, then I want to fight to do it, even if it's going to have an adverse impact on somebody, even if it may not be a money maker, whatever. I like to prove that I'm right. And so, yeah, I'm sure there are some cases. I can't think of any right now, but yeah, everybody has their own principles in that regard. But I would not represent somebody who wanted to do something that I thought was obviously not illegal. I wouldn't do that ever. But if I thought it was a bad idea, if it was going to ruin the creek or whatever, right, okay. Even if they could get away with it, I'd rather not do that. I don't want that on my resume that that creek got polluted because of what I did. [01:20:32] Speaker B: There you go. I get that. So you lead or led your since you are both respected as a leader in the industry, I assume you enjoy mentoring young attorneys. What advice do you offer to your mentees? [01:20:52] Speaker C: Yeah, that's comprehensive. Indeed. I love to give advice. Whether it's taken or not is another thing. I gave a lot of advice to my children. They took some, ignored some. I now give even more advice to my grandchildren. They take some and ignore some. And the attorneys that I work with take some of my advice and ignore others. We're all independent thinkers. I didn't take all the advice that was given to me, and sometimes I was right not to take the advice, other times not so much. But I love doing it and it was such a great honor. When a younger attorney comes to you and asks you what I think he should do or she should do about a situation, it's like being a parent. [01:21:42] Speaker B: Right, exactly. So is there some general advice you give to young mentees? [01:21:51] Speaker C: Yeah, that's evolving. If I had my brothers, I'd say, listen to the podcast of my John Co interview and do exactly what? But, you know, that's not going to fly. Frankly, I can't even get him to come into the office sometimes now, and that is as foreign to me know Beijing land use work. But again, I accept the fact know, the way in which I practiced law was not the same way that Norman Glasgow did. And he was successful in his way, I've been successful in mine. And there are a lot of different ways to achieve success. So I try not to be too strict in what I say, rather, the broad objectives. [01:22:47] Speaker B: Somehow. Certain things you might say, for instance, like client advocacy or certain ways of handling situations in public forums, maybe, or in private with clients, that kind of thing, how you behave. [01:23:06] Speaker C: Sure. Yeah, okay. I see where you're going now. Okay. Yeah, sure. Some land use attorneys, again, who won't be identified, are much more aggressive, even flippant, even bordering on, in my mind, disrespectful of people. None of those would wash with me. Now, some may disagree. They may say I'm as disrespectful as anybody, but I try not to be, certainly. But you have to understand that there are different views on things. And the fact that somebody has a different view doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong. If it's different than mine, they're probably wrong. But other than that, you need to respect people's views. You need to be polite. You need to appreciate what they're doing. These staff people, for instance, are doing their best. They're trying hard. Maybe they don't work the same hours that I did, or you do, but understand that they're in a position of power, so you need to respect it. But they're people, too. You need to treat clients the same way. Think through what your position is and be prepared to defend it, but recognize that sometimes people will disagree, and you're just going to have to deal with it. Yeah. [01:24:31] Speaker B: So relationships are key to our industry. Talk about some of your client relationships, if you would, and how they impacted your career, and how have you retained your relationships for so long? [01:24:42] Speaker C: Yeah, okay. Well, first of all, I'd start with sort of not how, but why. And that is, why is it important to have the relationship? Well, obviously it's most important because the client who's your client today, hopefully will be your client on another matter tomorrow. I've done fairly well in that regard. Some of the people I represent, I've represented for my entire career. But the other flip side of that, really, is that particularly in real estate, any profession for that matter, people are not always with the same. And many, many people that I represented when they were with client ABC and it moved to client Cde, I keep ABC as a client with their new person that took that job, and I follow the other person to client Cde. I've got two clients. I call it the Mitosis effect. [01:25:47] Speaker B: There you go. [01:25:49] Speaker C: And mitosis is great. So that's an important part of relationships. As I mentioned earlier, some believe that taking clients to lunch is an important part of the relationship. I can understand that for some people. I just haven't found that to be essential to me. Rather, letting the client know that you're thinking to them all the time, as I mentioned earlier, is more important. I love to send clients a note. Hey, I saw this article about something or other. I was thinking of you remember the time we did whatever and that sort of thing. So that not only are they on my mind when I'm working for them, they're on my mind when I'm not working for them. And the relationships with clients is also important. To have the relationships with the decision makers, the regulators, et cetera, in Montgomery County. That does not mean you need to make big financial contributions to candidates for whatever faults we may have in Montgomery County. My perception is we are squeaky clean ethically in that regard. These improprieties you read about really don't exist here, with a couple of minor, minor exceptions, and that's not true in zoning land use around the country necessarily, but you need to build these relationships with the people from the top part of government all the way down to the intake review person. And so that's important. [01:27:25] Speaker B: That's great. So without disclosing any secrets, you've already told some of them some stories of your favorite and not so favorite experiences and any lessons you learned from them. [01:27:36] Speaker C: Bob lots of lessons. Lots of lessons. And I chuckle with Adam, a couple that so early in my career, I took over the representation of Geico from my senior partner. They had parking lot lights that were put in there in the 1950s. Little six foot tall, five foot tall, mushroom shaped lights at a time when they didn't work past dark there. And those lights were inadequate with current safety issues, and so they wanted to upgrade them to better lighting. We applied for sorry, we got a new phone system here, and I can't figure out how to work some of the things. Anyway, so they wanted to put in new lights, so I represented them. It was a special exception use. I hired a lighting expert to come in. The neighbors were all up in arms. It was going to blind them at night. They weren't going to be able to sleep, the dog was going to bark all night, blah, blah, blah. So we go to the hearing. I get this lighting expert. He brings in a light meter, and we're in the hearing room, and they're saying, it's going to be so bright. I said, all due respect, let me show you that it's not going to be so bright. So I said, can we turn off all the lights in here? Okay, can we close the blinds? Okay, so we close the blinds in the hearing room. So I get the lighting expert to take his light meter up, and I say, put it here underneath the deus where my feet are, and tell me what the light level is under there. Oh, it's 1.0 or whatever the scale was. I said, okay, and what level is lighting going to be that we're proposing? It's going to be 0.8. I said, that's how light it is. This is not going to be keeping a flea up at night. I lost the case oh, my gosh. First of all, it was a five member board, and you needed four of the five to vote. [01:29:49] Speaker B: Really? [01:29:49] Speaker C: Supermajority. But secondly, what I learned from that is I was 100% right, they were 100% wrong. But that doesn't matter. It's about the impression. It's about what people are afraid of or whatever, and you need to dispel the rumors, not just correct the facts. I don't like to talk about losses, but the second lesson I learned was similar to that. As you may recall, jim Clark of Clark Construction used to live on the. [01:30:23] Speaker B: Eastern Shore over in Easton, fly his helicopter in. [01:30:26] Speaker C: And he owned a helicopter. He'd fly it in, it would land down at the Stewart Petroleum Building on Wisconsin Avenue, just inside DC. Well, when he built the Clark Building, he built it with a hillapad. That's right. Bob Metz, your former neighbor, handled the project with him, and they attempted to get approval for a hillapad at the time they built the building. The county denied it. So some years later, Jim Clark comes to me, says, you're the new sheriff in town. Can you get this? I said, well, we'll give it a college try. So I started on. He had his son in law, Jim Clark's son in law, be the point person on it. So I said, okay. His name was Steve. I said, Steve, here's the deal. I read in the newspaper or somewhere recently that the really wealthy people who go to the in at Little Washington, the best restaurant in the whole region, fly in by their helicopter. Here's the deal. If I can win this for your father in law, can you get him to lend us the helicopter to fly down to in at Little Washington to celebrate? Whoa. [01:31:37] Speaker B: There you go. [01:31:38] Speaker C: He comes back to me, says, you're on. We got this. I said, oh, sweet. I was all engaged. We filed the application. Lo and behold, one of the neighbors over in Moore, where another council member lived at the time, approached. The council member said, look, this is going to be terrible. I proved that that same helicopter is flying down Wisconsin Avenue every day because it's landing 2 miles to the south. So landing on the Clark Building is not going to change anything. In fact, it's going to dissipate the noise to anything farther south. Well, community wasn't having it. This council member introduced a change in the zoning law midstream that prohibited a helicopter from being approved in that zone. Dead in the water. What I learned from that is that laws can be changed. They can be changed for the bad, and you can be dead in the water even if you're right. But I also learned you can change the laws for your benefit, too. If you run into a problem and what you want to do doesn't fit, damn it, get the law changed so it does fit. [01:32:48] Speaker B: What's interesting, Bob, is NIH is, what, three quarters of a mile from that location? [01:32:55] Speaker C: Roughly, yeah. [01:32:56] Speaker B: And they have a helipad there. [01:32:58] Speaker C: Yeah. The thousand naval helmets. [01:33:00] Speaker B: Because the President of the United States flies in there on a helicopter. [01:33:03] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. It was all about image, and unfortunately, a well healed neighbor with a connection to the council made the so I've never been to the Inn at Little Washington, and I've certainly never flown in there by helicopter. So I'm still waiting for a helicopter ride. Then I'll go, Well, I think you. [01:33:26] Speaker B: Should go by car. Take your wife when you want, because it is a great experience. [01:33:34] Speaker C: I am told that. I am told that it's great. Another experience. Bethesda Row. I mentioned federal realty a great project. [01:33:44] Speaker B: Sure, of course. [01:33:46] Speaker C: What vision they had at the time they proposed that, which was about 1994 or something, rather, I started working with them on it. Retail was all about malls. Okay. And nobody was doing street front retail. But Steve Gutman with Federal had traveled enough, and he saw small towns, Europe and know, streetfront retail is cool. People like it. And so he wanted to do a streetfront retail project there, and so they hired me to do it. Part of the project was to be the multifamily development that's on Arlington Road at that time. The zoning ordinance allowed only a certain amount of height there, not what they wanted to do. So we were having a community outreach meeting to try to convince people that this was a good idea. It was in one of the storefronts there on Bethesda Row. Ben Jacobs. I'm sorry, not Ben, the real estate developer. Not Ben Jacobs, who was in the meeting. He lived in Edgemore, and he was complaining up and down about it. He looks out the window and he sees Ben Jacobs walking by on Bethesda Avenue outside the window, and he says, that guy there, that's Ben Jacobs. He knows about real estate development. Let me invite him in. He'll tell you that. This is not a good idea. This is a terrible idea. I said, okay, fine, invite him in. He didn't know that I represent Ben Jacobs on all. So he brings Ben Jacobs in. Ben comes in. This guy says, Isn't this a stupid idea? Blah, blah, blah, blah. Ben says, no, actually, I think it's a great idea. That's exactly what I would do. There, there. You great. But we had to change the law. This is a case where the Hillifad principle worked to my advantage. We changed the law to say, you can go higher here because it's streetfront retail. [01:35:47] Speaker B: Well, it's interesting. I interviewed for the podcast David Kitchens oh, yes. Of Cooper Carey. [01:35:53] Speaker C: Yeah. He was involved in the project. [01:35:54] Speaker B: He was the architect for that project. [01:35:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:35:57] Speaker B: And he talked about that project and other ones that he'd done because he was involved in new urbanism, which was really the theme of that architecture. [01:36:06] Speaker C: Yeah. We hired them because they had done a shopping center down in Florida. Yeah, I forget the name of it. [01:36:13] Speaker B: Maybe it was boca. [01:36:14] Speaker C: It was boca. Exactly. [01:36:15] Speaker B: Boca Raton. [01:36:16] Speaker C: Yeah, Boca. [01:36:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that was his. And he, of course, has helped Federal with other projects as well. Anyway, I thought I'd just bring that up. So that's an interesting case. [01:36:31] Speaker C: It was a great case. I did a Uli presentation on it. I wrote articles on Was, and there again, it wasn't my idea. It was Steve Gutman's idea. Okay. A brilliant idea. I drove the wagon. He was the one with the idea. [01:36:49] Speaker B: Well, I interviewed Don Wood, Federal, and in fact, yesterday I just interviewed Jeff Burkis, so his episode is going to come out ahead of yours. But we talked a little bit about Mr. Gutman's philosophy and what he's thinking was and the big culmination was Santana Row, which they built out in California, of course, which unfortunately had some issues. [01:37:15] Speaker C: That had issues beginning with burning down. [01:37:19] Speaker B: Yeah. And Steve stepped down because the way the company evolved. But it was a great theme. And of course, pike and Rose is a perfect example of know, that kind of thinking can evolve to it's a very special project, of course. [01:37:36] Speaker C: Yes, absolutely. And it set the stage for a lot of copycats, and I say that in a positive way. [01:37:43] Speaker B: Absolutely. So without this, you've been very active in community, including board memberships, real estate organizations, leadership, volunteer activities. Do you participate in this to keep yourself visible for legal work, or do you find personal satisfaction contributing or both? [01:38:04] Speaker C: Yeah, all of the above. I learned from senior attorneys that I worked under the importance of Uli number one, but all organizations and I have participated actively. When I first started practicing in the bethesda office for wilkes artists, I said, okay. Got to join the bethesda chevy chase chamber of commerce. And so, being naive, I looked at their calendar and, you know, when their board of directors meeting was. And so I show up at the BCC Chamber for the board of directors meeting, and one of the senior people, who are you? What are you doing? I said, Well, I want to join the chamber. I want to hear about this. Well, you're not welcome at the board of directors meeting. I got thrown out, but I later became vice president of the Chamber and then ultimately president of the Montgomery County Chamber. So it was just a hiccup in terms of etiquette, but it showed my interest. But organizations have been key to learning what's going on, to building relationships, as you see, you say, but also to inspiring and teaching others. What you're doing with your podcast right now? I've had great opportunities to provide lectures to the Maryland Building Industry Association assemblages. I've spoken at Uli meetings, including the national meeting in New York where I gave a speech about smart growth when Governor Glenn Denning was proposing it here in Maryland, and it was a new phenomenon, and I've had other opportunities like that. As I mentioned earlier, both my colleagues and I here participate in rulemaking proceedings and policy issues on behalf of organizations all the time because we think it's important for us to be leading the industry and shaping it as much as it is learning from what's going on. And they're great sources of new business for clients, of course. [01:40:09] Speaker B: So over your career, what have been the most surprising events or transactions you've participated in, and how did they play out? What kind of came out of left field that kind of hit you? Like, I didn't think that would happen. I'm shocked. Either good or bad. [01:40:25] Speaker C: Either way. Yeah. That one I got to scratch my head a little bit about. I certainly do not have 2020 foresight, so I've been surprised by a number of things. I'm going to defer on that question. I can't think of anything right now. [01:40:44] Speaker B: Do you advocate for an ESG sensitivity on your clients? [01:40:49] Speaker C: I'm learning about ESG. I'm old school, and people got what they deserved in the old days, if you will, or at least that was the theory. If you worked hard, you succeeded. If you didn't work hard, you didn't succeed. And I'm finding in life that that belief is not always true. Not everybody has had the same opportunities that I did. Was I handed opportunities? No. I largely built them on my own, but through inspiration. But others might not have even been able to achieve that, and it's gotten more difficult with time. I paid for my college myself. Nobody could pay for their college today, and so you have to be more inclusive than you ever did. I've probably hired as many women attorneys as I have men attorneys, which was sort of the first benchmark minorities. That's an additional challenge because there are not as many candidates as I would like to see. So we as a firm definitely try to reach out to that, but it's an unattained objective at this point in. [01:42:09] Speaker B: Time about environmental matters. [01:42:12] Speaker C: Environmental matters? Yeah. I'm learning about that as well. My partner, Pat Harris pointed out to me yesterday that vegetarian, if we eliminated eating meat in the world, we would cut our greenhouse gas emissions by 50% or something or other. Well, okay, I can believe that, and I'm concerned about greenhouse gas emissions, but my wife is a gourmet cook, and I'm not going to jeopardize either my dining or my relationship with my wife by saying, okay, we're eating eggplant tonight. Not that beautiful fillet that you roasted all day. [01:42:51] Speaker B: Well, I might say a controversial thing here, but if you go to the history of humanity, vegetables were only grazed upon. Our main focus was always something that we hunted. We're talking back a million years ago when the human race basically evolved. It's our natural inclination to eat meat, so it's really hard to overcome what your basic native desire is? I don't know. [01:43:30] Speaker C: It is. And with the natural environment beyond know, trees and streams. I love to fish. Okay. There, you know, so I want the Chesapeake Bay to be as clean as know. I'll confess, when I catch a rockfish there, I don't throw it back. It's on my table that night. Okay. Now, is that being environmentally conscious? Not as much as somebody who throws it back, maybe, but I'm not throwing trash. I'm not polluting or anything. And I definitely support efforts to clean up the water. I think our stormwater management regulations in the county, while very expensive to address, are all well intentioned, and I support those kind of things. [01:44:14] Speaker B: And wetlands. [01:44:15] Speaker C: And wetlands, exactly. I'm less an advocate, as I mentioned earlier, about preserving every tree. I think trees regrow. We should be able to cut them down to do good development. That's less expensive than preserving every tree. [01:44:36] Speaker B: The one wetlands project I'll just cite that I have found to be quite moving to me was a park that is in Kensington, Maryland, that I walk by very frequently just north of Knowles Avenue. You may be familiar with it. It was a soccer field at one point, and now it is at Wetlands, and they really made a very special environment there. So I'll compliment park and Planning or whoever came up with that idea, but that was an outstanding use, land use. [01:45:14] Speaker C: These rain gardens on the larger scale, and rain parks like that are good. They kind of lose me with these little tiny hits along the street. [01:45:26] Speaker B: This is acres. [01:45:27] Speaker C: No, that's what I'm saying. That's definitely a good idea. I agree. [01:45:34] Speaker B: It's one of the better land use things I've seen happen in recent years, I have to say. What are your life priorities among family, work and giving back? [01:45:44] Speaker C: Bob family work and giving back. All priorities, for sure. Had the privilege of being married for 45 years. Have two children and six grandchildren, four sisters and extended families. Family is everything to me. We go on group vacations once a year, all 40 of us. Wow. And we own a mountain house in western Maryland where we pack somewhere short of 40 into a two bedroom cabin with a loft and with tents all over the yard and do cool things together. [01:46:23] Speaker B: That's great. [01:46:24] Speaker C: My grandchildren are my life now. I loved boyhood, if I didn't say that before, I absolutely loved that more than law school, even, and more than being a lawyer. And now I have six grandchildren, four of whom are boys, and I love to be a ten year old boy again, knowing what I know now, having the money I know now I have now I can do whatever I would have done ten years old if I could. We build cool things, et cetera. They're my life work. [01:46:54] Speaker B: That's great. [01:46:55] Speaker C: Work is an equal part of my life. I'm still working. I'm. 72 years old now, and I like my work, I like the challenges, I like the rewards, I like the mental stimulation. I want to remain relevant in the world. And so I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. I may not work the same hours as I did when I was 40, but I've got the same commitment that I did giving back. You mentioned that I was kind of nosed to the grindstone for much of my career and admittedly didn't give back as much as I retrospectively wish I had. But when my younger son died ten years ago, we set up a scholarship in his name at his high school that has with it an internship where I take a rising senior at his school, Gonzaga. And the kid comes and works part of the summer with me, part of the summer with Coakley Williams Construction and is given an insight into the world. And these are kids from underprivileged society. These are kids who couldn't go to Gonzaga without a scholarship. These are typically kids without a father that grow up in an inner city. You know, they come here and they are in awe. They are inspired, and it inspires me. [01:48:15] Speaker B: Oh, that's great, Bob. [01:48:16] Speaker C: The first one of those, by the way, is now a construction manager for Clark Construction. [01:48:23] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. [01:48:25] Speaker C: And the others have achieved well. So I'm on the board of Big Brothers, big Sisters, because I think they do important work. So giving back is growing in importance, filling in the gap of the 50 hours work week that I used to have. And now it's 30. And now I give back other time. [01:48:43] Speaker B: That's awesome. That's great. So what advice would you give your 25 year old self today, Bob? [01:48:50] Speaker C: That's a very easy one. Don't be stupid like you were until you were 25 when you decided to go to law school. It's okay to have some good times, but it would have been better to start my career a little earlier than at age 25. Maybe at 15 I should have stopped doing some of the stupid things I did. But that's for another podcast. As to what those might have been, people will have to keep wondering. [01:49:18] Speaker B: So if you could post a statement on a billboard on the Capitol beltway for millions to see, what would it say? [01:49:24] Speaker C: Bob, I am probably the only interviewee you've ever had who actually has posted a sign on the belt. [01:49:33] Speaker B: Oh, really? [01:49:34] Speaker C: Yes. So my response is less about what I would do than what I did do. Okay. I mentioned that I went to Gonzaga High School. Gonzaga, for many years, had an intense rivalry with St. John's High School. Also in they still do, don't they? Still do. It's not quite as intense as it was then. Every year about this time of the year, actually, early November, there would be the annual Gonzaga St. John's football game and the spirit at Gonzaga. And at st. John's as well, was intense in both regards. Well, we at Gonzaga had a tradition of putting signs up throughout the city. Gonzaga beat St. John's. And so we would take bedsheets and we would spray paint. Gonzaga beat John's. And I I had the privilege of posting hanging a bedsheet from the bridge over the beltway, right near Kensington there, that said Gonzaga beat John's. [01:50:32] Speaker B: Near the temple. [01:50:33] Speaker C: Yeah, near the temple. Exactly the same place where they posted the girls high school posted the free Dorothy. Free Dorothy. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Well, we had a Gonzaga beat St. John's sign there at one time. So, again, I don't know what I would post today, but I know what I did post 50 years ago. 60 almost. Yeah. [01:50:56] Speaker B: That's fantastic. Well, thank you, Bob. Really appreciate your commentary and thoughts. And thank you for joining me today. [01:51:05] Speaker C: Well, thank you for having me. I'm honored. As I said, being called an icon suggests to me I'm washed up. And I don't want anybody to believe that. But I am absolutely honored and commend you on your work in doing this whole podcast thing. I hope that it inspires just one person in any way. [01:51:25] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:51:27] Speaker C: Thanks a lot.