Janet M. Johnson

Partner

Janet combines a rare blend of accounting, business, and non-profit board experience with many years as a commercial real estate lawyer in her role as a trusted advisor to clients seeking to maximize the return on their investments in commercial real estate.

Janet Johnson Portrait

When working with closely-held businesses and non-profits, she focuses on understanding how the real estate asset is used in their businesses and operations in order to accomplish their corporate goals and mission.

For companies leasing their space, she focuses on the dollars and cents part of the lease term, including those that will cost the tenant money in the long run. These issues include operating expense pass-throughs, repairs and maintenance, and insurance and indemnification obligations. Janet brings knowledge gained from years of speaking and writing on the subject of a landlord’s duties and obligations in commercial leases.

Janet pays close attention to the health of a client’s business or organization as a whole. In addition to real estate matters, she counsels clients on corporate structuring, corporate governance, general business, real estate, and family ownership or related business income tax matters. She also guides nonprofits on corporate governance and issues associated with unrelated business taxable income from real estate investments and development or redevelopment of unused or underutilized real estate assets.

For non-profit clients seeking to maximize their income from underutilized real estate, ground leases have long been a vehicle of choice in which Janet has years of experience. Negotiating a ground lease that will be financeable for the lessee, and yet provide the lessor with the controls it desires over the nature and use of the leased parcel has been an area of concentration by Janet during most of her career.

Where zoning and other entitlements are needed to develop a real estate project, Janet’s experience in zoning and annexation matters in the suburban area Chicago allows her to focus with the client on what aspects of the client’s project or business will provide the compelling reason for a municipality to approve their plans. When the situation requires, Janet works closely with colleagues in the firm’s Construction practice to develop successful strategies for her clients. Projects have included condominiums, hotels, retail centers, office buildings, senior housing projects, and other types of commercial, mixed-use, and educational institution projects.

When it comes to financing or purchasing or selling real estate assets, Janet’s experience in representing borrowers, lenders, purchasers and sellers allows her to understand what is driving the other side in order to forge compromise positions that will enable the deal to get done.

Client Work

  • Janet represented a major insurance company in the acquisition of a downtown Chicago Loop office building, and assisted the client by drafting its new form lease and form lease amendment for the building and in negotiating some of its initial new leases and lease amendments.
  • Janet represented a major Chicago-area nonprofit in developing more than 500 acres of land, including guiding them through the annexation and zoning process and the subsequent implementation of a master plan involving ground leases for residential, commercial and office uses, some of which necessitated amendments to the master plan approved in the initial annexation and zoning.
  • She represented a religious entity seeking annexation and zoning for its existing campus and future expansion, including right to obtain municipal sewer and water service to permit the construction of an additional building and a new parking lot. As part of that project, she represented the entity in the public hearings before the Plan Commission and Village Board, negotiated the annexation agreement and an agreement by which the religious entity would be entitled to recapture a portion of the costs it incurred in extending the municipality’s water and sewer lines thousands of feet through an adjoining property, as well as the easement agreement through that property. She also represented the entity in acquiring smaller adjoining properties for future expansion.
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Boards, Memberships & Certifications

Memberships

  • Janet has been a sought-out member of many professional organizations serving on the Programs, Insurance, and other Committees of The American College of Real Estate Lawyers, and has regularly been asked to present papers on cutting edge insurance, leasing, ground leasing, and ethics topics for real estate lawyers. She is a founding member of the advisory board for The John Marshall Law School (now University of Illinois Chicago School of Law) Center for Real Estate, one of the first law schools in the country offering an LLM in commercial real estate transactions for practicing lawyers, and has taught the Commercial Real Estate Transactions course in the program and presented programs on ethics and other topics pertinent to real estate lawyers for the Center.
  • She served as the President and a Member of the Board of Directors of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS) National Housing Support Corporation. Closer to home, she has represented a community/church-based nonprofit in building and renovating affordable homes in the Chicago North Kenwood Oakland neighborhood and represents a locally-based nonprofit that provides services to victims of domestic violence in acquiring and rehabilitating an apartment building for use as transitional housing for its clients, and a Florida-based non-profit in its search for property in the Chicago suburbs to develop a maternity home and transitional housing for its clients.
  • As a member of a board, she uses her experience in strategic thinking and planning, and board governance to assist the organizations in furthering their missions.
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Publications, Presentations & Recognitions

Publications

  • “Insuring Lease Work Letter Construction Projects: The Most Important Things to Know,” The ACREL Papers (Fall 2022) (primary author)
  • “Financing Ground Leased Projects: What Makes Leasehold Mortgages So Different from Other Mortgages?” PLI Commercial Real Estate Financing (April 15, 2019)
  • “Builders Risky Business: The Top 10 Things You Need to Know in Procuring Builders Risk Insurance Coverage,” 2017 U.S. Shopping Center Law Conference (ICSC) (October 25-28, 2017) (co-author)
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Presentations

  • “Work Letters:  It’s a Lease.  It’s a Construction Contract.  No – It’s a Work Letter!” American College of Real Estate Lawyers (October 21, 2022) (co-panelist)
  • “Commercial Real Estate Transactions:  Key Issues for Purchases and Sales from Contract to Close,” Doma Title Insurance Company Illinois Attorney CLE Blitz (June 7, 2022)
  • “Avoiding Contradictory Provisions: Insurance and Indemnification Issues for Landlords and Tenants,” New Jersey ICLE Commercial Leasing Seminar (Dec. 3, 2020)
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Recognitions

  • The Best Lawyers in America, Best Lawyers (2018-2025)
  • Illinois Super Lawyers, Thomson Reuters (2006-2009, 2011-2021)
  • Illinois Leading Lawyer, Law Bulletin’s Illinois Leading Lawyers Network (2006-2021)
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Insights