Danielle Meltzer Cassel
Shareholder
T: 312-609-7962
F: 312-609-5005
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Chicago
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Danielle Meltzer Cassel is a shareholder in the Real Estate practice group focusing on transactional real estate, land use and public incentives law. Since 1996, her transactional and land use work has covered a broad spectrum of property types, including urban and suburban retail and office developments, hotels, hospitals, schools, industrial parks and manufacturing facilities, power plants, and single-family and multi-family residential properties.
Ms. Cassel has represented purchasers and sellers, lessors and lessees, providers of debt and equity, developers, project operators and end users in transactions ranging from the beginning phases of due diligence, formation of joint ventures, design, and construction, to the ongoing operations, disposition, redevelopment and refinancing of existing properties.
Her land use and development work has included numerous planned developments and subdivisions in both urban and suburban contexts, annexations and disconnections, utility and transportation issues, impact fee and subsidy negotiations, and preparation of easement and operating covenants.
The respected English publisher Chambers & Partners cites Ms. Cassel as an “up and coming” lawyer in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business, noting her “phenomenal brain and terrific client skills.” She is also listed in The Best Lawyers in America.
Ms. Cassel co-taught seminars in zoning and land use law at both Northwestern University Law School (spring 1999-2008) and at University of Chicago Law School. She has lectured on land use law issues for the Urban Land Institute, Illinois Institute of Continuing Legal Education, CEDLP, University of Chicago Law School Real Estate Law Society, and the University of Chicago Law School Institute for Justice Clinic on Entrepreneurship.
Ms. Cassel was a member of Leadership Greater Chicago’s Class of 2006, and is the recipient of a “Tomorrow’s Leaders Today” award from Public Allies Chicago and a Special Recognition Award from the Partnership to End Homelessness. She currently serves on the boards of the Primo Center for Women and Children, the Community Economic Development Law Project (CEDLP), the Yale Club of Chicago and the Business and Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI). For several years, Ms. Cassel served on the board of WomanCraft, Inc., a subsidiary of Deborah’s Place, Chicago’s largest provider of shelter and services to formerly homeless women, and on the advisory board of Public Allies Chicago.
Prior to joining Vedder Price, Ms. Cassel spent 13 years in the Real Estate Department at DLA Piper US LLP, and, prior to beginning her legal career, worked, studied and volunteered extensively in several fields related to inner city development. Her three most significant research projects included multi-year studies of the 1990 National Affordable Housing Act; Lending collaborations for Community Reinvestment Act credit among traditional mortgage lenders and neighborhood-based institutions; and Bridge loans facilitating non-syndicated Low-Income Housing Tax Credit equity investments.
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- J.D., cum laude, Harvard University, 1996
- M.A., John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, 1996
- B.A., summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa; Yale University, 1992
- Board of Directors, Primo Center for Women and Children
- Advisory Board, Community Economic Development Law Project
- Board of Directors, Yale Club of Chicago
- Board of Directors, Professional People for the Public Interest (BPI)
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