The Hotels and Resorts practice group at Klinedinst is comprised of a team of attorneys who are focused on addressing the unique needs of the hospitality industry. When necessary, our Hotels and Resorts attorneys work with other members of our firm who focus their practices in other areas affecting hoteliers, including environmental law, employment, intellectual property, and construction attorneys.

Whether our clients need corporate, transactional, real estate, or litigation support, our well-rounded team of lawyers is able to help our clients in the hotel and resort industry with quality legal representation. Members of the Hotels and Resorts group are frequently called upon to give presentations and seminars regarding critical issues affecting the hospitality industry.

The Hotels and Resorts group handles transactions and litigation for a wide array of hotel operators, franchisees, and resort managers. Services provided by the Hotels and Resorts group include:

Transactional

Our attorneys regularly assist our clients with various transactions involving corporate matters, as well as purchase and sale of hotels and agreements regularly used by hotels and resorts in their day-to-day operations. We work closely with our clients to meet their objectives and needs in a variety of transactions including:

• Development of core corporate documents for formation, structuring, and governance (e.g., bylaws), as well as shareholder agreements, joint venture agreements, and partnership agreements.
• Drafting and negotiation of agreements for the purchase and sale of hotels. For instance, we recently completed a series of transactions on behalf of hotelier for sale of single hotel in the eight figures. Such work frequently includes ensuring our clients’ interests are addressed with respect to franchising, environmental and regulatory concerns (in matters ranging from advice regarding California’s Prop 65 to toxic torts and other environmental issues that can arise in the sale or acquisition of land), real estate, and existing construction. We frequently work with industry, real estate, and tax professionals to ensure our clients’ needs are met.
• Our clients do not always own the land on which their facilities are located, and we often assist them in drafting and negotiating leases and lease extensions or amendments. We recently helped one client negotiate a lease extension, and were able to secure concessions from new land owners which included significant benefits, including landlord’s financial participation in renovation of hotel premises, building, and guest rooms.
• Our clients often turn to our attorneys to provide advice regarding franchise agreements, as well as advice on when questions or issues arise between franchisor and franchisee.
• We are routinely asked by our clients to draft or review and update agreements regularly used by hotels and resorts, including agreements used for group bookings, rental of venues, vendor agreements, agreements to provide hotel guests with wi-fi and cellular service, and various other contracts important to our clients. For instance, we are frequently asked to advise and negotiate contracts for various services including management agreements and contracts for the provision of dry cleaning services, cable and hotel TV for all rooms, and software licensing agreements.
• From time-to-time, we are asked to negotiate and draft various one-off agreements which do not arise in the ordinary course of our clients’ businesses. Our attorneys have worked with hotel clients to develop agreements when large events are held on premises with unique requirements in order to shield our clients from liability, including for events tied to major conventions or civic events and for filming on premises. Firm attorneys have also provided counsel on use of hotel intellectual property (especially trademark) in connection with such events or other promotions.
• We routinely team with our employment attorneys to help our clients with required sexual harassment training, drafting and updating of employment handbooks, and counseling management or human resources to help guide them through difficult employment matters.

Litigation

Our attorneys are adept not only in negotiating and drafting agreements for our hospitality industry clients. In addition to transactional matters, we handle a wide array of litigation for clients in areas including real estate, construction, environmental, employment, allegations of ADA violations and premises liability. Our attorneys are adept at providing effective representation at all stages of litigation and pre-litigation, from motion and discovery, through trial and into appeal. All along the way, we provide aggressive representation for hospitality clients looking to protect and preserve their interests.

• In one case representing the land owner leased to a hotel operator, our attorneys aggressively prosecuted a large, complex case against a long-term tenant over breach of a multi-decade lease. On the eve of trial, the opposing party agreed to pay to our client everything it would have been able to recover at trial, including our client’s attorneys’ fees and costs, plus additional relief.
• We have represented various parties in the transfer of commercial land in disputes as to who rightfully should own the property at-issue, including seeking specific performance on agreements or defending against such claims, and filing and enforcing lis pendens and obtaining relief from the courts to remove lis pendens when they are wrongfully filed against our clients’ interests.
• Klinedinst attorneys have also served as litigation counsel for various parties involved in large disputes surrounding the quality of construction of hotels. Our attorneys advised a client hotel owner in pre-litigation negotiations where construction defect allegations were approaching nine figures, in order to attempt to avoid litigation entirely.
• We have aggressively represented our hospitality clients in various other disputes ranging from employment matters (discrimination, wrongful termination, and related litigation) to claims against hotel security to construction delay claims and various breach of contract matters.