Edward L. Schiff is Counsel in the Real Estate Practice in The Hartman & Craven Law Group of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP.
Ed is a distinguished gentleman of many talents. He is an exceptionally experienced, results-driven attorney and the resident legal scholar of The Hartman & Craven Law Group, as well as an ordained interfaith minister.
Ed is the senior real estate partner of The Hartman & Craven Law Group. During his 55 years of practice, Ed has specialized in cooperative and condominium law and has acted as attorney for more than 500 cooperative and condominium buildings in the metropolitan New York area. In addition, he has represented the developers of some of the largest residential condominium communities in the Eastern United States, including the large-scale Heritage Developments in Westchester and Connecticut and Sea Pines Plantation in Hilton Head, North Carolina. Ed has also represented owners who convert their properties to condominium and cooperative ownership as well as tenant associations in buildings undergoing conversion to cooperatives or condominiums. In addition, he is general counsel to a large number of boards of directors and boards of managers of existing cooperatives and condominiums.
In 1965, Ed was the attorney for the first conversion in the United States of an apartment building to a condominium under a condominium statute, and in 1970 was the attorney for the first conversion of a cooperative apartment building to condominium ownership.
Ed has written extensively and lectured in universities (Columbia, Fairleigh Dickinson and New York University) on the subject of the legal aspects of cooperative and condominium housing organizations and operations. He has also been a contributing columnist to Real Estate Weekly and a contributor to Professional Investor and The New York Times.
He has been called upon to lend his expertise in testimony before congressional and New York State legislative committees dealing with legislation affecting condominium and cooperative housing programs. His extensive practice also includes alternate dispute resolution as a qualified mediator and arbitrator in conflicts relating to real estate and construction matters.
Ed is a current member of the Urban Land Institute, the Federation of Cooperative Housing of New York and the Cooperative and Condominium Committee of the Real Estate Section of the New York State Bar Association as well as the Committee on Cooperatives and Condominiums of the Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section of the American Bar Association.
Ed received his B.A., summa cum laude, from The City College of New York (CCNY), and his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1951. He is admitted to practice law in New York and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In addition, he is a member of American Bar Association, the New York State Bar Association and the New York City Bar Association.
Ed is married to Betsy, a professional photographer (specializing in landscape and garden images) and author of books published in the US, Germany and France. He is a father to David, a graduate of California Institute of the Arts; Richard, an actor and also a graduate of CCNY; and Paul, a film producer and graduate of Wesleyan University. Ed and his wife live in New York City where he continues his acting studies and loves to read, remain immersed in theatre, is active as an interfaith minister and is Vice Chairman of the New York Orchestra, The Riverside Symphony.