Eliot C Abbott

"I think for my clients. I think about their business and legal problems. I suggest ideas or solutions, sometimes before they ever know they have an opportunity or problem."

Eliot Abbott, Chair, Business and Real Estate Transactions

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Named a Top Dealmaker of the Year in 2007 by the Miami Daily Business Review,  Eliot has been involved in business transactions on behalf of his clients for over twenty years. Whether the business is public or private, foreign or domestic, his experience and first hand knowledge in areas of telecommunications, Internet commerce, health care, real estate development and construction, international distribution, project finance, and financial institutions helps clients' realize their goals. He has served as a director of a NYSE telecom construction company and an Amex health care company.

For companies and their principals, Eliot advises and counsels regarding entity planning, tax advice, contracts, compensation planning for key individuals, financial planning, mergers and acquisitions, and exit strategies.

"Practicing law has become an outlet for my creative side. I really like helping build things; companies, buildings, or projects. Whatever my clients can dream up, that's what I'm interested in helping them to create."

For developers, Eliot knows the ins and outs of both residential and commercial projects. Have an unusual challenge? No problem, Eliot's come up with some creative solutions in land acquisitions, public, private, and public-private financing; entity agreements, leasing arrangements, sales, and tax planning.

Eliot, a member of the firm's Distressed Asset Group, counsels senior lenders, mezzanine lenders, and equity participants on issues such as; maximizing the return on their invested capital, the impact of borrower bankruptcy, negotiation and resolution of intercreditor disputes, successor developer liability issues, and rights and responsibilities arrising out of contracts held by the developer.

From Eliot's Case Files

Faced with a potential deal-breaking ultimatum from the seller of a decontaminated suburban site, Eliot worked with his developer client and found a novel way to close the deal: bury the site under a layer of dirt.

After spending significant money for decontaminating the multi-acre parcel, the owner, concerned about liability issues, agreed to sell only if the buyer would not dig on the site—a seeming impossibility for a developer wanting to build a shopping center there.

So, they decided to cover the entire site with red construction-fencing and pile dirt on top. Remarkably, the team located free dirt nearby—at a large Boston construction project needing to remove soil from the St. Charles River—and shopping center construction began.

**"CV, BV and AV are registered certification marks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used in accordance with the Martindale-Hubbell certification procedures, standards and policies."

Education

• University of Florida Levin College of Law, J.D., 1973
• University of Miami, LL.M., Taxation, 1976
• University of Florida, B.S.B.A., 1971

Bar Admissions & Memberships

• New York, 1983
• Florida, 1974

Noteworthy

• Top Dealmakers of the Year, Finalist, Daily Business Review 2007
• Super Lawyers, Florida Super Lawyers magazine, 2007
• Top Lawyers in South Florida, Corporate and Business & Real Estate, South Florida Legal Guide 2007
• "Legal Elite," Florida Trends magazine
• Florida Top Lawyers, Florida Monthly magazine
• Best of the Bar, South Florida Business Journal