Colleen is the first person her clients call when they have a business transaction in mind. She is responsive and available to her clients for all their corporate and business needs. Colleen’s ability to process and solve complex legal issues and her experience in effectively educating and counseling clients adds value to every transaction. Colleen has over 20 years of legal experience that includes work with international and domestic business transactions, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures (especially with respect to the drafting of limited liability company and shareholder agreements), private company investments, borrower side bank finance transactions, and general contract review and corporate matters. She works with entertainment lawyers who need corporate expertise for their client’s publishing, merchandising and joint venture entities.
Colleen regularly represents clients on both large transactional matters and more routine business operational needs. She is especially adept at managing complex transactions and coordinating the legal teams that are required to close them effectively so that clients can utilize her as their single point person. She works well with management team members of clients as well as other professional advisors. Additionally, she helps clients solve day-to-day problems and to put more routine business agreements in place. Clients have commented that she is “so valuable to us” and that working with her “was the best experience with an attorney we have ever had” and have often remarked on Colleen’s “quick response time” and her ability to always meet deadlines.
Prior to co-founding Grady Hunt PLLC, Colleen was a corporate partner at the preeminent Miami boutique law firm of Alvarez & Diaz-Silveira LLP where she served as managing partner for two years. Previously, she was a corporate attorney in the Miami, Stockholm, and Helsinki offices of White & Case LLP, a U.S.-based global law firm. Prior to joining Alvarez & Diaz-Silveira LLP, she taught full-time at Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad College of Law. At NSU, she taught critical legal skills utilizing substantive material from many subject areas including contracts, business entities, and professional responsibility. She continues to assist in preparing student teams for, and judging, competitions related to international arbitration, client counseling and transactional drafting.
Lauren makes her client’s needs her priority and guides her clients through the entire real estate transaction process, from letter of intent through closing. Lauren regularly advises individual and corporate clients as well as local municipalities in all types of real estate transactions and real-estate related transactions, including purchases and sales of distressed real estate loans. Lauren’s extensive experience advising clients on all aspects of purchasing, leasing, financing, managing, developing and selling real estate allows her to identify issues of importance to her clients and propose solutions to allow her clients to resolve those issues. Lauren represents developers in connection with the acquisition, development and financing of land and the creation of commercial and mixed-use developments. Lauren also represents foreign investors in connection with purchase of real property throughout the United States. She has extensive experience working through complex real estate development issues but also enjoys working with clients on more straightforward purchases, sales and leases.
Clients like working with Lauren because she is conscientious, and her strong work ethic ensures that the job gets done properly and completely. Clients have written that “she is our ‘go-to’ person,” that they “want Lauren involved in every aspect of the transaction because she has our best interests at the forefront” and that they are “appreciative of the continuous hard work that got us to closing.”
In addition to her active legal practice, Lauren remains connected to the University of Miami School of Law, where she taught as a member of the adjunct faculty. Specifically, the Land Security and Finance course, catering to practicing lawyers and law students pursuing an LL.M Degree in Real Property Development. Lauren is committed to community service and has been a member of the Junior League of Miami (JLM) since 2005 and has served in various leadership positions with JLM, including as Vice President of Development and as a member of the Board of Directors. Lauren is a member of United Way Women United, a circle of purpose-driven women, passionate about making a difference through philanthropy and service. Lauren is also involved with the Urban Land Institute (ULI), a non-profit education and research institution focused on promoting responsible land development and building sustainable communities, and she collaborates with fellow women real estate industry leaders in ULI’s Women’s Leadership Institute.
Prior to co-founding Grady Hunt PLLC, Lauren was the head of the real estate practice at the preeminent Miami boutique law firm of Alvarez & Diaz-Silveira LLP. Previously she was a real estate and finance attorney in the Miami office of White & Case LLP, a U.S.-based global law firm.
