Thomas F. Stewart
Tom is a graduate of UC Berkeley (class of 1982) and UC Hastings College of the Law (class of 1985). He has experience in all aspects of commercial real estate, but has focused on the areas of sales and leasing, having represented clients in thousands of such transactions over the years. Tom is one of the most experienced office-leasing attorneys in the country, and has handled some of the largest office-lease transactions in California. For more than 36 years, Tom has provided astute counsel for some of the largest commercial property owners and users in the state. Tom has been an investor in many commercial real estate projects, which gives him a practical, real-world perspective that is uncommon for lawyers.
He has been selected as the Sacramento Real Estate “Lawyer of the Year” for 2020 by the Best Lawyers in America organization (and has been a multiple-year recipient of their award for being in the top 5% of private-practice attorneys nationwide), is rated “A-V” (the highest rating, indicated preeminent legal ability and ethics) by Martindale-Hubbell since 1994, has been a multiple-year recipient of the “Northern California Super Lawyers” designation (which is limited to the top 5% of attorneys in the state), and he has been recognized as one of the “Best of the Bar” by the Sacramento Business Journal.
Tom served for many years on the Board of Advisors for the Commercial Tenant’s Lease Insider, the Commercial Lease Law Insider, and the Commercial Property Management Insider, which are monthly publications of national circulation. Tom is also a contributing author to California Continuing Education of the Bar’s Office Leasing book, and The Insider’s Best Commercial Lease Clauses book. A frequent lecturer on leasing and other real estate law topics, Tom has made presentations to numerous professional real estate organizations including the Institute of Real Estate Management, the Building Owners and Managers Association of Sacramento (BOMA), the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), the Sacramento Commercial Realtors organization, the Sacramento County Bar Association, the organization of Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW), and numerous brokerage companies. He has written numerous articles on commercial real estate topics for the Sacramento Business Journal.
Tom has been an instructor for two courses sponsored by the California Continuing Education of the Bar: the Advanced Course-Office Leasing program, and the Drafting and Negotiating Office Leases course. He has also taught BOMA’s college-level Law for Property Managers and Marketing courses in their Real Property Administrator (RPA) certification program.
He has served on the board for Recon Bay Area (which is a real estate and construction networking organization based in San Francisco), the Association of Commercial Real Estate, and is an active member in the Lambda Alpha Land Economics Society. Tom has been active with a number of charities, having served on the board for the River Oak Center for Children, the Sacramento Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the Sacramento Tree Foundation. Tom is also active in the Fregoso Outdoor Foundation (which supports veterans and their families), is a former Advisor to Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity in Berkeley, and has represented a number of local nonprofit organizations on a pro bono basis.
His experience includes:
- Lead attorney for Health Net in the lease transaction that received the Summit Award for the “Most Significant Lease Transaction” in Los Angeles from the Los Angeles Commercial Realty Association/BOMA Los Angeles.
- Lead attorney for the University of the Pacific in a transaction that was recognized by the San Francisco Business Times as the “Best Office Sale/San Francisco” in 2011, and also represented the seller in a San Francisco transaction that was featured as one of the Wall Street Journal’s “Deals of the Week” in 2013.
- Represented parties to land-sale transactions involving thousands of acres in California, including mining properties, ranches and residential lots. Clients include Health Net, Hines, Berkeley Land Co., Kaplan Education, Buzz Oates Enterprises, Mariani Packing Company, Inter-Cal Real Estate Corporation, numerous real estate investors, and even a number of law firms.
Areas of Practice
- Commercial real estate transactions, with a strong emphasis on purchase and sales and leases