Laura Kaplan

Partner, Real Estate Department

Laura’s experience includes advising clients on acquisition, disposition, leasing, financing, and development of office, industrial, retail, and mixed-use properties. Prior to joining Sherin and Lodgen, she was a real estate attorney at an AmLaw 100 firm in Boston. Previously, she served as Senior Counsel at Greystone & Co., Inc., where she provided real estate asset management services to public agencies in all aspects of the sale and long-term lease of surplus real property, including procurement law, compliance and negotiation of purchase and sale agreements, development agreements, leases, and conveyancing documents. Laura is a member of the Wayland Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board.

Read more about Laura’s practice here.

Q: If you wrote a book about your career so far, what would you title it and why?

A: Just Happy Accidents.  With a few exceptions (including my current position), my career has been mostly a progression of unplanned events.  I zig-zagged up and down the “ladder” in terms of title/responsibility in a variety of contexts (from organizations with fewer than 5 employees to those with over a 1,000).  I’ve been a lawyer, a consultant, a manager and a broker.  I sometimes wonder how some people know what they’re looking for if they’ve only followed one predictable path.

Q: What advice would you give to your younger self?

A: Trust your instincts.  I’m a huge nerd and I used to think (and argue) my way through decisions and relationships when I was younger.  I used to make lists of pros and cons to analyze options.  I used to seek outside assurance that a particular choice was correct.  These approaches are not without value, but most of the time I already knew what was best for me.  Then I used logic to convince myself otherwise (read “Just Happy Accidents” above).

Q: What does being a woman in this industry mean to you?

A: At the outset of my first law job, I sought out a senior attorney to provide general advice.  She told me to always answer the phone using both my first and last name (to not be mistaken for a non-lawyer) and to always get the coffee at the meeting when someone asked me to do so (because that person assumed I was support staff).  This advice was not what I expected to hear and has proved itself fairly irrelevant.  But it reminds me how much harder it used to be to establish oneself as a woman in the industry.  We “stand of the shoulders of giants.”