Lauren Rico

A partner in DLA Piper’s Washington, DC, Real Estate practice, Lauren Rico represents private equity funds, investment managers, family offices, insurance companies, commercial banks, developers and other institutional investors in various commercial real estate transactions.

She focuses on acquisitions and dispositions, complex single-asset, multi-asset and multi-jurisdictional real estate financing transactions, including agency and CMBS financings and construction loans. Rico also assists in creating joint ventures for the ownership, development and management of real estate assets, workouts, restructurings and the purchase and sale of distressed debt and commercial leasing.

Rico has also been developing expertise in Islamic finance.

Notable matters include representing a New York private equity firm in a $72 million construction loan to develop a 133-unit apartment building with ground-floor retail in Brooklyn. She represented the same client in the $129 million acquisition and Freddie Mac financing of a 442-unit multifamily project in Pittsburgh, PA.

Rico’s pro bono work includes representing a US Marine Corps veteran in a bad conduct discharge upgrade petition. She also represented the District of Columbia Housing Authority in organizing and serving as the third-party election monitor for the first-ever virtual election of Executive Committee Officers for the Citywide Advisory Board (“CWAB”).

She also participates in the Election Protection program run by the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, spending many hours working for the national election call center, and has successfully settled landlord/tenant cases for the DC Pro Bono Center’s Right to Housing Project.

This is why Lauren Rico received Connect CRE’s 2024 Washington DC & Mid-Atlantic Lawyers in Real Estate Award. The award celebrates real estate attorneys who have distinguished themselves in their practice and the larger community.