Goulston & Storrs, an Am Law 200 firm, is pleased to announce that Hara Perkins, a director and head of the firm’s New York City office, has been named a “Real Estate Law Trailblazer” by The National Law Journal (NLJ). Perkins is known nationally for her deep expertise in affordable house and economic development. She previously served as co-chair of the firm’s Multifamily Housing Industry Group and is currently a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.

Perkins was recognized by the NLJ for her work spearheading the development of innovative affordable housing projects – including negotiating over $10 billion in low-income housing tax credit transactions for developers and investors – to bring these transformative projects to fruition. She is highly skilled at building consensus by finding novel paths forward to get both public and private deals done. On the public side, she represented the City of New York in the sale and development of Essex Crossing, a mixed-use development with 500 units of affordable housing in NYC’s Lower East Side, which was completed after four decades of disagreement among various stakeholders. On the private side, she represented Forest City Ratner Companies as the master-builder of the Cornell Tech Campus, a 12-acre, net-zero campus on Roosevelt Island.

More recently, Perkins has been advising Google in structuring its visionary plans to invest $1 billion in affordable homes in San Francisco. Her work for Google is a model for how large companies outside of the real estate industry can use capital to solve problems in affordable housing.

She regularly speaks on industry trends and is active in various industry organizations, including serving on the Propmodo Editorial Advisory Board and serving on Urban Land Institute’s Public Private Partnership Product Council. Perkins also co-chairs the Yale Alumni Real Estate Association. She has received numerous awards and accolades throughout her career and is regularly recognized as a top real estate lawyer in the U.S.

She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2003 and her B.A., cum laude, from Yale University in 2000.