Thomas J. Phillips

Thomas J. Phillips is practice group leader of Brown Rudnick’s real estate practice group and has been practicing commercial real estate and land use law for more than 30 years. Phillips has counseled owners, developers, landlords, tenants, lenders and investors in a variety of property acquisitions and sales, development and permitting projects, leases, debt and equity financings, workouts/restructurings, and other sophisticated real estate transactions spanning virtually all asset classes.

Phillips has particularly significant experience working with retail and mixed-use properties. He is the chair of the International Council of Shopping Centers Legal Advisory Council and a past state director for that organization

Prior to joining Brown Rudnick, Phillips was a partner in the Boston law firm of Hutchins, Wheeler & Dittmar, where he served as real estate department chair.

Select Representative Transactions

• Represented international publicly traded resort casino operator in its development of a world-class resort casino in Massachsusetts.
• Represented preeminent national life sciences REIT and its joint venture with a major global life insurance company. Transactions included the acquisition and financing of millions of square feet of space for purchase prices exceeding $1.25 billion, as well as subsequent leasing, development, permitting, construction, and refinancing activity.
• Outside counsel to one of the nation’s largest big box retailers for over 20 years. Transactions have included negotiating over one hundred leases and other agreements nationwide for retail store and non-retail properties (including sales offices, distribution facilities, and a 45,000 square foot corporate data center); the purchase in bankruptcy court of a portfolio of 40 leases encompassing 1.7 million square feet of retail and warehouse space in multiple states; dozens of transactions involving the dispositions of over 1.5 million square feet of surplus property throughout the United States; negotiating for the purchase and development of freestanding retail store sites; defending eminent domain proceedings; prosecuting lease and land use disputes; and advising client in overseas expansions.
• Counsel to Boston-based developer and its leading life insurance company joint venture partner in the retail and restaurant leasing components of a large multi-building, multi-use development project in Boston’s Seaport/Innovation District.

These are some of the reasons that we named Phillips to our Boston & New England grouping of Lawyers in Real Estate. These are real estate attorneys who have distinguished themselves in both their practice and the larger community.