Practice areas: Real Estate; view more
Licensed in California since: 1981
Education: Stanford Law School
Selected to Super Lawyers: 2022 - 2025 Call today:
310-853-1411
Gorman & Miller
201 Santa Monica BlvdSuite 300
Santa Monica, CA 90401 2212 Visit website
Details
Ken Miller is one of the founding attorneys at Gorman & Miller in Santa Monica, California. His practice focuses on real estate transactions and real estate litgation, including purchases and sales, mortgage financing, distressed debt workouts and bankruptcy sales, tax deferred exchanges, leases, real estate joint ventures, co-tenancies, partition actions, easements and boundary disputes, and construction contracts and disputes.
Since 1999, Mr. Miller has been lead counsel in the successful closing of over $7 billion in commercial real estate deals across the United States, with a focus on net-leased properties. His recent closings include over $1 billion in sale-leasebacks with major public companies like Walgreens, Citibank, BMO Harris Bank, Rite Aid and Pep Boys. He was also lead counsel in the $38 million sale of a franchised hotel in Orange County, California, the $260 million purchase of the Sanofi U.S. headquarters complex in Bridgewater, New Jersey and the acquisition of the 664,000 square foot Dow Texas Innovation Center in Lake Jackson, Texas..
In addition to transactional work, Mr. Miller handles and advises on real estate litigation and dispute resolution. His recent successes include settling a mechanic’s lien foreclosure action for a general contractor, resolving a fair market value purchase option dispute for a real estate investor, representing a commercial landlord during a tenant bankruptcy and aiding a lender in a real estate loan workout.
Mr. Miller graduated summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Hamilton College in 1978. He then earned his Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1981. He was admitted to practice in California in 1981.
Practice areas
Real Estate: BusinessFocus areas
Condominiums & Cooperatives, Landlord/Tenant, Mortgage & Refinance, Short Sale
- 100% Real Estate: Business
First Admitted: 1981, California
Professional Webpage: https://www.gormanmiller.com/ken-miller
- Member, Real Property Law Section of the California Lawyers Association, 2025
- Secretary and Trustee of the Santa Monica Bar Association, 2025
- Kinfolk LLC and affiliates, 2025
- SunVic Properties, Inc., 2025
- Brixton Capital, 2025
- Corporate Partners Capital Group LLC, 2025
- AVG Partners, 2025
- Co-counsel to two buyers of a 510,000 square foot office building in Stamford, Connecticut. Each buyer acquired a tenant in common interest in the property. , 2022
- Representation of the investor in the negotiation of a joint venture agreement for the acquisition of two apartment buildings in Florida totalling 328 units., 2024
- Representation of the investor in a joint venture agreement for the acquisition of an 80 unit apartment building in Florida., 2023
- Lead counsel in the negotiation of a joint venture agreement, the acquisition of an 81 unit apartment building in California by the joint venture, and the financing for such acquisition., 2023
- Lead counsel to the buyer in the acquisition of a $16 million retail center including negotiation of the acquisition financing documentation., 2024
- Lead counsel to the seller in the $38 million sale of a franchised hotel in Orange County, California., 2024
- Lead counsel to the buyer-landlord in the sale-leaseback of 59 Walgreens Stores in 12 states., 2022
- Lead counsel to the buyer in the acquisition of the land underlying a 700,000 square foot former investment banking headquarters building., 2017
- Lead counsel to the buyer of the 664,000 square foot Dow Texas Innovation Center in Lake Jackson, Texas., 2020
- Lead counsel to the buyer in the acquisition of a 674,000 square foot corporate campus in Bridgewater, New Jersey leased to Sanofi’s U.S. subsidiary. Sanofi is the world’s eighth largest pharmaceutical company with a global workforce of over 100,000., 2022
- Lead counsel to the buyer of the Alcon Laboratories' 882,000 square foot contact lens manufacturing facility in Johns Creek, Georgia, subject to the Alcon lease. The acquisition was structured as a reverse tax free exchange., 2018
- Lead counsel for buyer-landlord in the sale-leaseback of 9 Gold's Gyms in Texas and Oklahoma., 2018
- Lead counsel to the buyer-landlord in the sale-leaseback of 21 Walgreens Stores in 12 states., 2020
- Super Lawyers, www.superlawyers.com, 2025
- JD, Stanford Law School, 1981
- BA, Hamilton College, Summa Cum Laude, 1978
- I was one of three lecturers. My lecture covered net leases and sale-leasebacks and the advantages of U.S. net lease investment to foreign investors., Lecturer, Foreign Investment in US Real Estate, BOKS International, Real Estate, 2022
- This law review article analyzes the financial, bankruptcy and accounting consequences of various credit enhancement devices for net leases, including parent guarantees, security deposits, and letters of credit. The article also proposes a customized credit default swap as additional support for the tenant's obligations under a net lease., Author, Using Letters of Credit, Credit Default Swaps and Other Forms of Credit Enhancements in Net Lease Transactions, Virginia Law & Business Review, Real Estate, 2009
- The lecture covered common obstacles in the negotiation and closing of commercial real estate sales. In particular, I addressed "as-is" clauses, encroachments, and structures to defer or reduce capital gains., Lecturer, Avoiding Deal Killers in Real Estate Sale and Purchase Transactions, Strafford, Real Estate, 2018
- This book covers all aspects of the ownership, financing, documentation, taxation and accounting for net leases and sale-leasebacks with a focus on those areas where the treatment net leases differs from the treatment of other forms of real estate investment. The book, as updated, has been published annually since 2016 by the Practicing Law Institute., Author, Net Leases and Sale-Leasebacks, a Guide to Legal, Tax and Accounting Strategies, Practising Law Institute, Real Estate, 2025
- This article was published shortly after the Enron accounting scandal and the resulting changes to U.S. accounting regulations. The article analyzes and compares two popular off-balance-sheet structures: the synthetic lease and the sale-leaseback. The article concludes that transparency concerns and the new accounting regulations will significantly limit the continued use of the synthetic lease but that the off-balance-sheet real estate sale-leaseback will remain popular. That has largely been the case., Author, Off-Balance-Sheet Sale-Leasebacks and Synthetic Leases after Enron, California Real Property Journal, Real Estate, 2002
- The lecture was presented on March 21, 2012 at Interface Net Lease West, Los Angeles, California. The lecture summarized the NAIC requirements for a Credit Tenant Loan., Lecturer, Credit Tenant Loans, Interface Net Lease West, Commercial Real Estate, 2012
- This article describes the statutory requirements, customary procedures and potential risks of acquiring real property from a bankrupt seller. It also covers the transfer tax consequences of such an acquisition., Co-author, Acquiring Real Property from a Bankrupt Seller, Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Journal, Real Estate, 2013
- Real Estate Investment
Office location for Ken Miller
201 Santa Monica Blvd
Suite 300
Santa Monica, CA 90401 2212
Phone: 310-853-1411
Selections
- Super Lawyers: 2022 - 2025
