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WitHout reCourse: Harvey, tHe real estate laWyer
impossible to satisfy, (8) making (lending) or taking out (borrowing) a loan, (9) signing a “note” that sets forth the terms of repayment of that loan and is controlled by the lender’s “commitment,” (10) signing and delivering a “mortgage,” the meaning of which—assuming that you read footnotes—you were taught in our first class, (11) seeking, and fighting over, adjournments, (12) properly dividing rents or providing for antici- pated rents and making, and fighting over, “adjustments,” thereby deciding which portion of prepaid expenses is reimbursed by the buyer and which portion of unpaid expenses is owed by the seller (and, as pre- viously noted, thereby garnering the pennies that, if followed, will lead you to the dollars), (13) signing and delivering many other documents that are even more boring than the ones to which I have already referred, (14) generally failing to follow the script that was originally set forth in the contract to govern the closing and thereby experiencing renegotia- tions, recriminations, and other forms of obnoxious conduct for which law school failed to prepare you, and (15) repeatedly asking for coffee or soda and going to the men’s room—thereby (necessarily) escaping from the closing room, albeit too briefly.
Real Real Estate
Now, class, if you’re still awake, you might say that all of those things, except for the free coffee and soda, sound pretty boring. And you’d be right if you did. It was boring to me as well, almost boring enough for me to question the decision to leave the Litigation Department. But learn- ing about those things was necessary, and it permitted me to gain the tools that I needed as I went on and came to discover what I really liked about real estate. What I came to learn is that real estate is not about technical stuff; it is about the generation, flow, and division of money. It is about, as I liked to put it for my classes, “who gets what money when”; it is about the “splits” and the “priorities.” What I discovered, somewhat to my surprise, was that I (due to my grandmother Rosa’s influence?) really liked the business aspects of commercial real estate law. More to
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