Dusty Elias Kirk

Dusty Kirk is a partner with Reed Smith. Her practice focuses on acquisition, financing and tax increment financing for commercial, retail, office, industrial and institutional properties, and obtaining economic incentives for development projects. She was Practice Group Leader of Reed Smith’s Global Real Estate Group from 2010 to 2017, managing over 215 lawyers and professionals.

Notable assignments include leading a team of lawyers to negotiate option rights supporting the redevelopment of Pittsburgh’s former 28-acre Civic Arena site. She also secured approval for a new $148 million mixed-use office tower in Pittsburgh on behalf of a New York City developer. She led the team representing Bayer Corporation in selling its former North American headquarters campus in Pittsburgh.

She is a member of the Urban Land Institute (where she served as board chair of the organization’s Women’s Leadership Initiative) and is on the Allegheny College Board of Trustees. She was appointed a disciplinary board hearing officer with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Other organizations she’s worked with include Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation of Western Pennsylvania, Dress for Success and the Winchester Thurston School.

Kir received the Anne X. Alpern Award from the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Commission on Women in the Professions Awards, the Honorable Sylvia A. Rambo Award, given by the Women’s Law Caucus of the Penn State (Dickinson) School of Law to a woman and “Leading Lady” by Oakland Catholic High School.

She earned her law degree from Pennsylvania State University’s Dickinson School of Law.

These are some of the reasons why we are honoring Dusty Elias Kirk with Connect CRE’s 2023 National Lawyers in Real Estate Award. The award celebrates real estate attorneys who have distinguished themselves in their practice and the larger community.