Andrew Eliot Porter
Following lengthy stints at two national law firms and a boutique Chicago litigation firm where, over the course of many years, he defended class and mass action securities and insurance fraud cases and litigated complex real estate matters, Andrew joined Schatz Development as General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer. During his tenure, he assisted with the development of 600 North Fairbanks, a 41-story luxury high-rise condominium in the Streeterville neighborhood of Chicago, as well as the management and leasing of office and retail property owned by an affiliate of the Schatz Companies. His responsibilities included real estate closings, the negotiation and administration of construction contracts, financial modeling, and enterprise risk management. He also established a residential real estate brokerage company and served as its managing broker.
After the collapse of the subprime mortgage market triggered a global credit crisis and birthed a generation of apartment renters, the Schatz Companies created domu, a Chicago-based online residential listing service for landlords and tenants. Again, Andrew assumed the role of General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer, assisting in the development, launch, marketing, and operation of the company, and authoring a new standard-form Chicago apartment lease and numerous online guides to help the public navigate the practical and legal challenges associated with the apartment renting industry.
In 2017, Andrew returned to the private practice of law, where he has devoted most of his attention to real estate transactions, real estate litigation, construction contracting, and condominium association consulting. His clients include real estate developers and operators, general contractors, receivers, private lenders, franchisee tenants, condominium associations, and TIC owners. He has closed nearly 200 commercial real estate transactions in the past five years and played a substantial role in the administration of the $90 million EquityBuild receivership estate after the company was shut down by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Andrew graduated from the University of Michigan in 1985 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology and attended medical school at George Washington University until, using a gloved finger, he was asked to perform a rectal exam. He quickly reconsidered his future aspirations, and the following morning he resolved to pursue a career path more compatible with his growing interests in law, economics, and real estate.
After working on the tenant representation side of the commercial real estate leasing industry for Julien J. Studley Co. (now Savills-Studley), he attended Georgetown University Law Center, earning a Juris Doctor degree in May 1990. Before joining the Manhattan office of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal (now SNR Dentons), he served as a federal judicial law clerk for the Honorable James C. Cacheris of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and was honored to devote a portion of that time clerking in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. During law school he also worked at the Federal National Mortgage Association, assisting in both the development of DUS (Delegated Underwriting And Servicing) and the approval process for prospective DUS Lenders.
In his spare time, Andrew takes great pleasure playing whatever musical instrument tickles his fancy, and he seamlessly floats between guitars, basses, ukuleles, drums, keyboards, and even the kazoo, on which he can play an anthology of famous bebop tenor solos note-for-note. He is married with three children – Julia (an interior architect), Spencer (a graphic designer with an expansive roster of jazz and pop musician clients), and Celia (a rock, pop, soul, gospel, blues, and jazz singer with aspirations for Broadway). Andrew also enjoys reading books about evolutionary biology, astronomy, and investing.