Mintz Levin Attorney Paul D. Wilson Contributed Chapter to Award Winning American Bar Association Book on Land Use Law
8/13/2010
Boston, MA – The National Association of Real Estate Editors (NAREE) recently named the 2010 winners of the Robert Bruss Real Estate Book Awards, including Bronze Award winning "At the Cutting Edge 2008: Land Use Law from the Urban Lawyer," published by the American Bar Association and edited by Dwight H. Merriam. The book includes a chapter written by Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C. attorney Paul D. Wilson entitled, "Of Synagogues and Nude Juice Bars: Can a Municipality Settle Land Use Litigation Without a Permitting Process?"
In his chapter, Mr. Wilson considers the question of when and how a landowner and municipality, litigating a decision over a land use permit application, can settle that court case once and for all without triggering another permitting process which might result in additional court appeals.
Now in its third year, the NAREE Bruss Book Awards program recognizes excellence by real estate authors. It is named for the late Robert Bruss, a syndicated real estate columnist, prolific writer and longtime NAREE leader. Books focused on home buying, selling, leasing, renting, mortgage finance, green building, urban design, investing, architecture, construction and other related topics are considered in the contest.
Mr. Wilson is a Member in the firm's Litigation Section and the head of the Real Estate and Land Use Litigation Working Group. His litigation efforts for housing developers, whom he regularly represents from local zoning boards to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, have earned him recognition as a housing industry leader. His recent real estate litigation has also involved shopping malls (wetlands, zoning permits, leases and other contract litigation), a dispute over the right of a quarry to continue to exist, negotiations to avoid litigation with environmental agencies about decades-old contamination, commercial lease litigation for both landlords and tenants, and land purchase contract litigation.
For the past 10 years, Mr. Wilson has taught trial techniques for Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education in Boston, and has organized and moderated seminars throughout the United States on national developments in land use law for the American Bar Association (ABA). He recently chaired a national ABA panel on affordable housing and spoke to the ABA's Business Law Section on pro bono opportunities for transactional lawyers.
Mr. Wilson serves on the governing body of the American Bar Association's Section of State and Local Government Law. At the ABA's annual meeting in August 2009, the Section of State and Local Government Law elected him as its Director of Continuing Legal Education for the coming year. Mr. Wilson has been named a Massachusetts Super Lawyer annually since 2004.
He graduated with honors from Princeton University and New York University Law School, where he was named to the Order of the Coif and served as an editor of the Annual Survey of American Law.
