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March/April 2009

Beth Mitchell, partner in the firm’s Real Estate and Finance Department and co-chair of the Commercial Finance practice group, published an article on the current financial crisis in the March/April 2009 edition of the Urban Land Institute newsletter. The column discusses the factors contributing to today’s financial crisis, including a combination of rampant overbuilding and over-borrowing in the residential sector, excessive financial engineering by Wall Street and lax government oversight. Beth notes that in many respects Massachusetts isn’t to blame for the crisis. The “barriers to entry” including the high cost of land and the time-consuming and protracted permitting process tend to insulate it from the overbuilding that occurs elsewhere throughout the country.