About
Ryan has decades of legal experience representing sophisticated, entrepreneurial, and institutional real estate clients across billions of dollars of transactions. But what makes him truly unique is that Ryan is equally comfortable in wingtips or a hard hat. He spent over a decade working as the Chief Legal Officer of a premier real estate developer (building, converting, or renovating roughly 8,300 Class A+ rental units with a total project cost of about $4,300,000,000) where he provided counseling throughout the entire life-cycle of real estate investments. He has also served as a general counsel for affiliated general contractors, manufacturing and property management companies, and has been a trusted advisor to developers, lenders, and investors alike looking for a resource that both understands the nuances of the “dirt” real estate business and the complexity of structured finance with an eye on how to scale a business.
Prior to his in-house work, Ryan was a real estate and corporate attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP, and before that Ryan worked for Kirkland & Ellis LLP. In both roles, Ryan represented real estate private equity sponsors, investment banks, high net worth individuals, developers, real estate operating companies, and hospitality clients in all aspects of private equity real estate transactions.
Working across the life cycle of a real estate project means Ryan has a breadth of experience that covers both the capitalization of projects (e.g., mortgage and mezzanine debt, common and preferred equity together with ground leases, tax credit and syndications) and the successful execution of buying, entitling, building, managing, leasing and selling (or recapitalizing) real estate. As a trusted advisor, Ryan also has extensive experience in general partner and corporate-level and platform growth strategies for developers and other private equity companies as they mature.
In addition to Ryan’s legal experience at firms and in-house, he has spent over a decade as a professor at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Pennsylvania where he created courses on the practical application of transactional law skills for third-year law students preparing to begin their legal career in the transactional space.
Ryan joined Adler & Stachenfeld LLP in April 2025 and is a cum laude graduate of the University of Notre Dame Law School. He received his B.A. from the University of Richmond. He is admitted to practice in New York and Pennsylvania.
When not at work Ryan can be found spending time with his family, playing music, and doing his best to work on his chess game so his son will still play with him. He serves on the Board of the Paul Robeson Chess Club (a 501(c)(3) providing chess and life counseling at-risk youth) and of the French International School of Philadelphia where his two children join his wife as proud polyglots.
Notable Transaction Expertise:
- Closing a permanent loan together with preferred equity and mezzanine debt of over $435,000,000 in a take-out of construction financing of a mixed-use project in Philadelphia, PA.
- De-leasing, predevelopment, and acquisition of 1,000,000 sq. ft. office conversion in Washington, D.C.
- Joint venture equity and structured construction loan financing of 800-unit mixed-use development with total capitalization exceeding $500,000,000
- Joint venture equity, structured construction loan financing, and sale of 1000+ unit multifamily project resulting in the largest multifamily sale transaction in City of Philadelphia history
- Discounted loan purchase, ground lease, and recapitalization of mixed-used development
- Recapitalization of its portfolio of 168 limited-service hotels across 33 states with debt of $1.6 billion
- Various NAV financing transactions including corporate-level bond issuances for real estate developer
- Forward sale acquisition of multifamily property in northern New Jersey exceeding $200,000,000
(Transactional expertise above achieved before joining Adler & Stachenfeld LLP.)
