April F. Condon, a real estate partner at Day Pitney LLP, has continued the firm's legacy of investing in the development of real estate professionals by being the lead author of the Second Edition of The Lease Manual: A Practical Guide to Negotiating Office, Retail, and Industrial/Warehouse Leases, recently published by the American Bar Association (ABA). Condon follows in the footsteps of Rodney J. Dillman, a former Day Pitney partner who authored the ground-breaking First Edition, published in 2007. Condon and Dillman collaborated in the preparation of the Second Edition and were assisted by Day Pitney's deep bench of real estate attorneys in a collective effort to share their leasing knowledge with a new generation of real estate professionals.

"The feedback we received from the First Edition was excellent, but our readers wanted more: updated lease paragraphs, more compromises and alternatives, and more analysis of each party's negotiating position. The Second Edition has a new lead author, April F. Condon, and her expertise takes the Second Edition to the next level," said Dillman.

"Much has changed in leasing over the past 15 years, and the Second Edition of The Lease Manual is written from a fresh perspective with a focus on current market trends and relevant issues to assist real estate lawyers, real estate brokers, and all other real estate professionals who are structuring or negotiating a lease and wondering whether they are missing a critical component for their client in any particular provision of leases," said Condon. "Readers of The Lease Manual now have a "go-to" reference tool that considers each typical provision of a lease from all pertinent viewpoints. It was a gratifying process to put so much of my life's work into a book that can be shared to help others working in real estate leasing."

The Lease Manual provides a focused look at answering lease-based questions by analyzing typical lease provisions from several sectors of leasing (office, retail and industrial/warehouse) from four distinct points of view: landlords, tenants, lenders and – new to this edition – brokers, thanks to the contribution of Richard P. Levine of CBRE, Inc.

This updated edition, offers many other additions, including:

• More alternatives, compromises and analyses of lease provisions;
• New lease negotiation strategies;
• An exploration of the lessons learned from COVID-19 and its impact on the industry;
• Analysis of additional lease provisions, including various forms of "work letters" and more nuanced special tenant rights and landlord protections; and
• Sample landlord accessory lease documents and sample tenant mark-ups of such documents.

Condon has over 25 years of experience structuring, negotiating, documenting and closing complex and varied real estate transactions but with a particular passion for and focus on commercial real estate leasing. Condon has been involved in over 1,000 national (and several international) lease transactions, representing both landlords and tenants in each of the office, retail and industrial sectors.

Condon received her B.A. from Georgetown University and her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. She is admitted to practice law in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York.

Dillman, a former partner at Day Pitney, is also the former General Counsel and Secretary of Babson Capital Management LLC. He received his B.S from Kent State University, an M.A. from Kent State University Graduate School of Management, and his J.D. from Duke University School of Law.

The book can be ordered here.