Every year, AZ Big Media, which publishes both PTK and AZRE magazines, selects Arizona’s top people and projects to showcase in its premier commercial real estate magazine — PTK — from an impressive and competitive nomination pool. Each day we will highlight 20 different categories of People to Know. Here are the real-estate attorneys to know in Arizona for 2024:
LEARN MORE: Read last year’s edition of PTK magazine
Arizona real-estate attorneys to know for 2024
William Allison
Of counsel
Withey Morris Baugh
Since joining private practice in 2001, Allison has represented clients with projects ranging from one acre to several thousand acres in municipalities and counties from Pima County to Yavapai, Navajo and Apache Counties and across the Phoenix Metropolitan area. The scope of his work encompasses land-use entitlements from pre-annexation negotiations through final zoning and approval of infrastructure agreements. Alison also specializes in helping clients navigate issues with regulatory compliance, historic preservation, conservation district rules and more.
Biggest career accomplishment to date: “My biggest career accomplishment within the last three years is continued approvals for and success of the revitalization of Park Central. Since 2017, I have led the entitlements work for Park Central.”
Adam Baugh
Partner
Withey Morris Baugh
Adam Baugh is a land use and zoning attorney and partner at Withey Morris Baugh, PLC. Baugh has helped landowners and builders succeed in environments that frequently appear hostile to development. As a result, he regularly appears before neighborhood organizations, planning commissions, city councils, and appellate hearings to advocate and obtain land use entitlements, business approvals and liquor licenses.
No. 1 on the commercial real estate bucket list: “Participating in the planning, entitlement and development of the Superstition Vistas area. The Superstition Vistas, which is currently state land, is some of the last major land left in the East Valley.”
Jay Kramer
Shareholder
Fennemore
Kramer’s experience as a Phoenix-based real estate attorney includes acquisition, infrastructure financing, entitlements, development and sale, as well as loan workouts, restructuring and enforcement, currently extending to projects as diverse as renovating a professional sports team’s stadium to guiding an array of new data centers relocating to the Phoenix Metro area.
Biggest career accomplishment to date: “Having a 40-year legal career in Phoenix, of which, 35 of those years are with one law firm. And, still being on most people’s shortlist for any major real estate project, maintaining a reputation for integrity and fairness with opposing counsel, and training and mentoring numerous associate attorneys, many of whom are now my clients.”
Surprising fact: “While I was in college I worked in the White House.”
M. Brennan Ray
Shareholder
Burch & Cracchiolo
Ray is a certified specialist in real estate, Arizona Board of Legal Specialization, and practices with the firm’s zoning and real estate attorneys. He has experience in the areas of land-use planning, zoning, real estate transactions, landlord/tenant, title insurance and other real estate-related matters. He is also experienced in commercial and business litigation.
Biggest career accomplishment to date: “I have had the opportunity to work on a variety of zoning cases through the Valley during my relatively short career, but one of my biggest accomplishments is working on rezoning cases in the same city that I live in now and that my family has been in for four generations.”
Scott Stein
Managing attorney
Stein Law
Scott J. Stein is a business and real estate deal attorney. Stein’s practice focuses on real estate, sales, leasing and development, corporate transactions, structuring and strategic planning, loan financings and hospitality matters.
Biggest career accomplishment to date: “As a commercial real estate attorney focused on transactional law, one of my biggest career accomplishments is the creation of my firm’s niche practice group focused on issuing Arizona Legal Opinions for all financing transactions. As local counsel, I have been privileged to play a small, but vital role, on many of the largest deals in the Valley and expand my firm’s reach to work with a wide range of developers and their counsel from all over the world.”
