The State Bar is holding its 35th Annual Real Property Law Section Retreat on May 20-22, 2016, at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel & Spa, and registration is now open on the Bar’s website. My partner Matt Henderson, a member of the Section’s Executive Committee, will be moderating what promises to be the lively discussion of a panel entitled “The California Supreme Court: Reforming CEQA From The Bench,” at 8 a.m. on May 21. The attorney panelists include Andrew Sabey of Cox Castle & Nicholson, Thomas Henry of Stoel Rives, and myself.

Following that panel, however, will be the real “big event”: the Section will present its “2016 Real Property Persons of the Year – Great Collaboration” award to Edmund L. Regalia and Marvin B. Starr, two of Miller Starr Regalia’s founders who are giants of the legal profession in the realm of real property law. I well know that this honor is richly deserved. Personally, it has been a great privilege for me to know and have worked with both of these gentlemen over the years, and I was particularly fortunate to have benefited from Ed’s mentoring in the course of our work on numerous litigation matters during the many years he practiced. Brief biographies of Ed and Marv pointing out some of their many achievements can be found here.

I encourage CEQA, land use and other real property practitioners to register and attend the retreat.

Questions? Please contact Arthur F. Coon of Miller Starr Regalia. Miller Starr Regalia has had a well-established reputation as a leading real estate law firm for more than fifty years. For nearly all that time, the firm also has written Miller & Starr, California Real Estate 4th, a 12-volume treatise on California real estate law. “The Book” is the most widely used and judicially recognized real estate treatise in California and is cited by practicing attorneys and courts throughout the state. The firm has expertise in all real property matters, including full-service litigation and dispute resolution services, transactions, acquisitions, dispositions, leasing, financing, common interest development, construction, management, eminent domain and inverse condemnation, title insurance, environmental law and land use. For more information, visit www.msrlegal.com.