Neil H. Sekhri is Of Counsel in the San Francisco office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. He is a member of the firm’s Real Estate Department.

Neil has practiced real estate, land use and municipal law for over 30 years. His experience includes public and private partnerships, ground leasing, development agreements, land use and entitlements, CEQA, BCDC, public trust, historic preservation, acquisitions and dispositions, commercial leasing for landlords and tenants, and public agency rules and procedures. Representative clients include the Golden State Warriors in the successful entitlement and implementation of a new Event Center and Mixed-Use project in Mission Bay; the Oakland Athletics working on the entitlement of a new ballpark and mixed-use development on the Oakland Waterfront; Forest City in the successful entitlement and redevelopment of Pier 70, a 28-acre mixed-use development within the Port of San Francisco’s Pier 70 Historic District; The Related Companies in the successful  entitlement and redevelopment of a 300-acre publicly-owned landfill site in the City of Santa Clara; Build Inc. in the successful entitlement of a large mixed-use public/private development with the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department; and Treasure Island Community Developers in the successful entitlement and ongoing implementation of the redevelopment of Treasure Island, a former U.S. Navy base, as a large new master-planned community.

He has extensive experience collaborating with public agencies for both private and public clients.  Recent public agency clients include Hastings College of the Law in their successful entitlement and public financing for a urban campus project; and Napa County in the entitlement for the Napa Pipe project, a large mixed-use brownfields redevelopment project. Previously, Neil was a San Francisco Deputy City Attorney where he acted as senior real estate counsel for the Port of San Francisco. Representative projects at the Port include leading the Port through the negotiation and approval of the transaction documents and entitlements for the $400 million James R. Herman Cruise Terminal project at Piers 30-32; the $100 million historic rehabilitation of the Ferry Building; the historic rehabilitation of Piers 1, 1½, 3 and 5; and the complex land exchanges at Mission Bay, a 300-acre redevelopment site.

Neil is recognized by Chambers USA as a leading lawyer for California – Real Estate: Zoning/Land Use and was awarded the 2017 Daily Journal California Lawyer of the Year award for his work on the Golden State Warriors Mixed-Used and Event Center Project. He has been a member of the board of Directors of the Foundation for San Francisco’s Architectural Heritage and is an officer of LAI International, an honorary real estate professional society.

He is a graduate of the University of California at Davis King Hall School of Law where he was editor of the Law Review. Neil received his undergraduate degree in English with honors from the University of Maryland.