Proskauer Partner Offers Solution to 1952 Leases with Ice Delivery Riders
Proskauer Rose partner Ronald Sernau has been busy negotiating a new New York lease for the law firm and developing software to standardize commercial leases.
Sernau couldn’t divulge the cost of the lease on 13 floors of a new glass building across from the Port Authority Terminal. But he tells the New York Times in a Q-and-A interview that “we got a great deal.” Sernau, who co-chairs Proskauer’s real estate division, told the Times that “the negotiations went on forever—look, it’s a big lease.”
Sernau says landlords are offering better deals these days, “but the market isn’t as flush as you might think. Take Proskauer and when it came time to look for space. Even in this market, how many blocks of 400,000 square feet do you think are available in this town? Like three.”
Sernau told the Times that his work at Proskauer also includes development of new leasing software. “That’s the Proskauer Commercial Leasing System,” he told the Times. “I created it in my basement, where I learned how to program. It makes the lease process shorter; it standardizes the process; and it makes real estate information data flow from one system to another.”
Sernau said too often lawyers spend months negotiating leases and addressing the subtleties, then the lease “goes on a shelf and basically nobody looks at it again.” Too often, he says, old leases are being used instead of new ones based on new subtleties.
“Believe it or not, I’ll get leases on a form from 1952 with five pages of riders,” he said. “It still talks about how the tenant can’t accept ice deliveries from anybody not approved by the landlord!”
The Times also asked Sernau what he does for fun. “Up until a few weeks ago I would say that I haven’t had any fun since the late ’80s,” he said. But he just went on a two-week vacation with his wife, a corporate lawyer, to Martha’s Vineyard.
