Jesse Sharf is a partner in the Century City office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and is Co-Chair of the firm’s Real Estate Department, and is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.  His real estate practice experience includes extensive representation of all types of investors, lenders and developers.  On the lender side, Jesse represents mezzanine lenders, construction lenders, CMBS lenders, and portfolio lenders in workouts, whole loan sales, syndications and participations, foreclosures and other enforcement actions, construction lending, mezzanine lending, CMBS lending and structured finance lending transactions.  In addition, Jesse represents real estate funds, developers and institutional and non-institutional investors in all areas of real estate, including:  workouts; acquisition of distressed loans and other assets; construction, permanent, securitized, mezzanine and participating financing; environmental aspects of real estate transactions; loan restructuring, workouts and enforcement; all aspects of commercial development; acquisition and sale of vacant land, office buildings, apartment buildings, hotels, shopping centers, and other commercial and residential properties; acquisition, sale and financing of loan portfolios; forming and representing limited liability companies, general and limited partnerships and joint ventures; sale-leaseback transactions; representation of REIT’s; commercial leasing; ground leasing and ground leasehold financing; and contractor, architect, broker and management agreements.  Currently and for the past several years, Mr. Sharf has been recognized as a leading lawyer in the area of real estate law by Chambers USA, where he consistently ranks in the top tier of real estate lawyers, in California and nationally, and where he was recently listed as a "Star Individual", Legal 500, where he is ranked one of the top 10 leading real estate lawyers in the United States, Super Lawyers and The Best Lawyers in America®.  In 2016, he was featured in the Who’s Who Legal listing for Real Estate law, which recognizes outstanding practitioners in various practice areas.  In 2013, Mr. Sharf was named one of the Daily Journal’s Top Real Estate Lawyers and was featured in the Los Angeles Business Journal’s "Angelenos to Know in Real Estate Law."

Jesse received his law degree from the New York University School of Law in 1986, where he was Editor of the New York University Law Review.  He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in history and international relations, with a minor in economics, cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1982.  Jesse lives in Santa Monica with his wife, Stacy, where they are occasionally visited by their three sons, and where Stacy and Jesse consistently battle over whether to get a dog.  Jesse is a member of the Real Estate and Construction Division, and the Board of Trustees, of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, is the former chair of (and still very active in) the Los Angeles chapter of AIPAC’s real estate division, is on the Board of Trustees of NYU Law School and on the Advisory Board for the Jewish Theological Seminary; he is a chair of the real estate division of Make a Wish, is on Cedars Sinai’s Board of Governors and is on the board of Los Angeles Hebrew High School.  Jesse is a frequent lecturer on real estate, joint venture and real estate finance issues.