Luber: Hey everyone – Are you looking to make your law degree work for you without
actually practicing law?
Lots of lawyers choose to work in Real Estate – and today we’re gonna be looking at
one of those paths.
Those of you who are real risk-averse might want to sit this one out!
We’re exploring careers in Commercial Real Estate – today – on JD Careers Out There
– so stick around!
[THEME SONG] Alright – As you may already know, at JDCOT we explore career paths you
can do with a law degree - both in and out of law – and we do this to help you find
a career that fits you – so you can love what you do.
Today’s guest is Josh Gorin –he’s a Corporate Real Estate Advisor for Savills
Studley, which is a global commercial real estate services firm with 600 offices around
the world.
Josh has been with the firm since 1997.
He’s the Senior VP and Managing Partner for Los Angeles, where he specializes in large,
complex transactions for organizations ranging from Fortune 100 corporations to law firms
and entertainment companies.
Many of you will be happy to know that Josh entered this industry right out of law school.
So if you’re hoping to dive into a JD advantage job without first working in a law firm, I’ll
be asking Josh how you can do that – and how your law degree’s gonna help you.
Alright, let’s get started and meet Josh!
Josh, welcome to JDCOT!
Josh: Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
Luber: Definitely.
Thank you for being here.
Josh, let’s start with this, why don’t you give us your elevator pitch on what you
do as a corporate real estate adviser?
Josh: Sure.
I’m hired by organizations to evaluate their real estate to determine what is a more efficient
and less expensive way to operate their business.
This can take the path of a law firm who leases office space and is considering renewing or
a relocation; a global company who requires a full portfolio examination of thousands
of locations; or a large corporate headquarters or movie studio that may need to evaluate
whether to buy, to lease, develop, sell, structure their real estate occupancy by a more sophisticated
financial design.
Luber: Interesting.
So what would you say makes this path rewarding for you?
Josh: What’s most rewarding is really my clients.
My client base is so dramatically different and my client contacts are generally CFOs
or managing partners of law firms, so I really get an opportunity to learn about different
businesses every day, get a clear understanding of what works, what doesn’t work within
those businesses, and so I have an incredible amount of experience with every business line
you could possibly imagine.
Luber: That’s great.
When you started law school, did you intend to practice law?
Josh: Not really.
I think I really didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do.
I was an English major in college and it seemed like a natural path.
Growing up in the Midwest, I didn’t have a tremendous amount of exposure to the entertainment
business, so what to do as a writer seemed fairly limited in that regard, so it seemed
like a more natural path for me to get involved with law school.
Six months into it, I quickly realized that that was absolutely something I did not want
to do and then started figuring out what would come next.
Luber: What led you to conclude that this was the right path for you?
Josh: I always had somewhat of an interest in real estate.
Not sure where or how that came about.
During college, I worked in financial services companies, so I did have sort of a finance
background in that regard, but I just felt like it was something that I wanted to learn
more about and so I set out to do just that.
Luber: And how did you break in?
Josh: I started by, really informational interviews.
And I went out on a crazy path of meeting anybody I could that would sit with me for
five minutes and I would ask them every question I could think of.
They would tell me about their area of expertise, what their business was about.
Many times, they would share with me their thoughts on different areas of real estate
that I should explore further, and then I would take the experiences from each interview
and apply it to the next interview.
Through that network, I ultimately found where I am now.
Luber: Alright, we’ll continue this discussion in the Full Interview.
If you’re watching on YouTube, please give us the Thumbs Up if this was helpful.
And come visit us at JDCOT.com.
You’ll hear lots more from Josh on what it’s like to work in different commercial
real estate roles as well as what it really takes and how you can break in.
If you’re already at the site, make sure you join our membership – that way you get
access to this full interview, and lots more career-building video content AND transcripts
so you can read along.
Thanks again for watching everybody.
I’m Marc Luber and I’ll see ya soon.