Michael J. Whitton

Mike is well regarded for his ability to provide his clients with strategic insight throughout their business life cycles. As both a transactional attorney and a trusted advisor on litigation strategy, Mike offers clients holistic advice that considers their broader business goals, risks, and opportunities.

Mike advises and counsels public and private companies, real estate investment trusts, and lending and financial institutions on sophisticated and complex real estate matters throughout the U.S. His clients call on him for assistance with a range of matters, including the formation and termination of large-scale joint ventures, portfolio acquisitions, real estate development, private equity investments, strategic alliances, and debt and equity financing and restructuring.

Mike has a national reputation as a go-to advisor in transactions involving golf courses/country clubs, marinas, hotels, and other resort properties in the hospitality sector, and has experience negotiating tournament, hospitality and/or sponsorship agreements with private clubs, PGA, and the USGA. Mike also handles deals that involve businesses with significant real estate assets, such as automobile dealerships and service stations, self-storage businesses, manufacturing and power plants, and port storage and ship loading facilities.

Many of Mike’s clients call on him to supervise their most complex litigation matters. He builds effective and efficient teams, manages cases and budgets, participates in trials and, as needed, develops settlement strategies and leads mediation and settlement conferences.

Mike is a California real estate broker. He also serves on the firm’s Policy Committee.

Transactional Matters

• Represented a diversified and vertically integrated construction company in a public-private partnership that covered the design, construction, financing, maintenance, and operations of a fiber-optic network consisting of more than 3,000 miles of fiber-optic cable with multiple redundant loops, valued at $275 million.
• Working to significantly expand a client’s worldwide export facilities, including the acquisition of leasehold sites, construction of new facilities, and the addition of new and reconfigured rail tracks, by working with affiliated service providers, including stevedores and labor unions, and coordinating the acquisition of necessary environmental permits.
• Handled work related to an extensive, three-party fiber-optic infrastructure project with a major social media company, utilizing one of North America’s largest railroad right-of-ways between two major U.S. cities.
• Handled the dismantling and dissolution of a $200 million petroleum coke terminal in the Port of Los Angeles, which included over four years of complex litigation and settlement negotiations with the City of Los Angeles, labor groups, the operating management company, equipment lessors, salvage purchasers, the tax assessor, and environmental agencies, and involved claims in excess of $400 million.
• Helping the chief executive officers of three international companies form a new entity, negotiating multiparty agreements for the purchase of steel from a new mill in Asia as well as the exclusive brokering to other international purchasers/consumers.
• Handled the purchase of a 221-guest-room hotel on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, including the negotiation of branding and management agreements.
• Served as lead counsel in the acquisition of multiple service station portfolios throughout the western United States from a global petrochemical company, and the related debt and equity financing arrangements.
• Represented a prominent school of higher education and its board of trustees in merger discussions and eventual affiliation with another large university. He negotiated deal points, amended entire bylaws and advised board members on a number of corporate governance issues.
• Worked on the acquisition of a power plant in the Caribbean, developing a corporate organizational structure that would allow the company to avail itself of the economic benefits in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and undertook complete due diligence to acquire the plant, negotiating acquisition documents and instruments. He also negotiated fuel supply agreements and offtake agreements, worked through permit issues, and coordinated rights to discharge water waste.
• Represented a leading self-storage owner and developer in acquiring significant holdings and operations throughout California, including the related joint venture and financing deals.
• Served as lead counsel for Arnold Palmer Golf Management in the development of a number of golf courses and country clubs in partnership with nationally recognized universities.

Litigation Matters

• On behalf of one of the largest retail petroleum operators in Northern California, supervises and strategizes all aspects of real estate and operator disputes, as well as employment law matters.
• Managed litigation and led mediation/settlement efforts to recover a fraudulently induced investment and to defend real estate easement claims for a huge, privately owned conglomerate of companies based in Asia. He currently leads the defense of another matter for the client involving derivative claims and breach of fiduciary duty in a shareholder/corporate dispute for the client.
• Represents one of the nation’s premier builders of military housing units. He has supervised and strategized all aspects of various prime/subcontractor disputes, including a large class-action wage-and-hour claim and a complex subcontractor dispute where Mike personally engaged in a series of mediations over 18 months that resulted in very favorable settlements.
• Served as a member of a litigation team working on discovery and pretrial preparation involving a claim that was resolved following trial and before entry of what was to be a $1 billion-plus judgment in the client’s favor. He was one of three people responsible for negotiating and documenting the global settlement.
• Worked with the executive team of a major West Coast coal throughput facility to successfully maintain an export channel to Asia while minimizing the competition.
• Played a significant role in the Diocese of San Diego bankruptcy, developing a novel strategy whereby the parishioners intervened in the bankruptcy, claiming the churches and schools belonged to them and not the Diocese, which ultimately led to protection of the assets for the parishioners, and pressuring settlement of the case.

• Leaders in Law, San Diego Business Journal (2020)
• One of the 50 Influential Leaders in San Diego, The Daily Transcript (2018)
• Best Lawyers in America®: Real Estate Law (2018-2026)
• Top Lawyer, San Diego Magazine
• Transcript 10 Top Attorney by the San Diego Daily Transcript (2012)
• The Best Golf Lawyers in the Country, The A Position
• One of the 10 Best Attorneys in the Golf Industry, Golf Inc. (2011, 2012)
• Nominated as a San Diego Top Influential, by the San Diego Daily Transcript (2010, 2011, 2013, 2014)
• Achieved an AV® Preeminent® Peer Review Rating, Martindale-Hubbell
• California Leading Lawyer, Real Estate, Chambers USA (2007, 2008, 2009)
• Received an award for his “outstanding commitment and support to helping disabled veteran businesses,” Elite Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise Network
• San Diego Super Lawyer, Business/Corporate