In the Daily Journal feature, The Tower of Power, Telecom Law Firm’s attorneys discusses their wireless transactional and regulatory matters—which includes leasing, licensing, easements, sales, permitting and everything in between—for their private and public entity clients.
These days new-business primarily comes from issues related to wireless leases for corporate, government and private individual clients. Firm partner Robert “Tripp” May III says, “It’s such a niche area, so you would think we would have a limited number of opportunities to have clients. But with hundreds of thousands of cell sites, that’s not the case.”
Founder and principal attorney, Jonathan Kramer, explains that this work generally fits into three categories: “Representing a landlord negotiating or renewing a cell lease; representing landlords monetizing an existing site lease by selling it; and recovery of underpayments.” Many clients discover that the carriers owe them back rent or other damages because nearly 30% of cell sites they encounter have some material uncured breach.
Most importantly, clients rave in the article. One government official tells the Daily Journal that “[Kramer] is the expert in the field. He wrote our new wireless ordinance and has guided us, kept us apprised of all the new rulings that come through regarding wireless technology and what the FCC is doing. Anytime we have these technical questions that we just can’t answer, he’s our go-to person who can answer them in a way we can really understand.” And a real estate management company recounts how “Tripp immediately reviewed our documentation and contacted the cell site provider. Within two weeks we had met with Tripp and the cell site provider and resolved the outstanding issues.”