GEORGE FATHEREE advises clients in large and complex real estate transactions. He also advises professional  sports teams, artists, museums, and other arts and cultural institutions across a range of issues and transactions.  His clients value his commercial approach, pragmatic advice, market perspective, collaborative style, creative  problem solving, and ability to execute time-sensitive transactions. George has experience in a broad range of  commercial real estate transactions, including joint ventures, fund formations, financings, acquisitions and  dispositions, leasing and real estate M&A with a focus on hospitality, industrial, multifamily, entertainment venues,  sports arenas, casinos, and energy deals.

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George led a team of attorneys in securing the return of Bruce’s Beach to the descendants of Willa and Charles Bruce, in a precedent-setting case that saw land returned to a Black family nearly a century after it had been  taken by the city of Manhattan Beach as a result of racial animus. George developed and implemented a strategy  that involved advising on statewide legislation to enable the transfer, conducting genealogical research,  determining the proper appraisal methodology, helping defend litigation brought to stop the return of the property,  analyzing federal tax treatment and, ultimately, negotiating the terms of the return of the property and the lease  back to the county. 

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The Daily Journal named George to their 2022 "Top 100" list of lawyers whose legal work has changed the law,  an industry, or society in the last year. He received the 2020 “California Lawyer Attorney of the Year” award from  the Daily Journal in recognition of his representation of the J. Paul Getty Trust in acquiring the photography  archives of Ebony and Jet magazines. George has been selected for inclusion in Chambers USA: America’s  Leading Lawyers for Business in the California Real Estate category (2018 2022). He was named one of Real  Estate Forum’s “Top 50 Real Estate Professionals Under 40” (2015) and an “Outstanding Young Lawyer” by the  Los Angeles County Bar Association (2017).

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Prior to his legal career, George was the chief operating officer of the California Charter Schools Association, an  education reform nonprofit. He also developed substantial business experience as a management consultant with  McKinsey & Company and Booz Allen Hamilton, and co-founded the internet company govWorks.com, for which  he was named one of Silicon Alley’s “Top 25 Minority Entrepreneurs” (1999).

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George earned his J.D., cum laude, from Loyola Law School and is a Fritz B. Burns Scholar and a member of  Alpha Sigma Nu. He received an A.B., cum laude, from Harvard University where he studied government and  religion.

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