Josh is the head of the firm’s real estate practice, advising clients across all phases of property acquisition, due diligence, development, financing, leasing, and disposition. He represents purchasers, sellers, developers, landlords, tenants, and lenders in a variety of real estate transactions, including negotiating purchase and sale agreements, leases, easements, and other key documents critical to property ownership, development, and use.

With a lifetime passion for real estate, Josh provides counsel on diverse projects spanning the energy, infrastructure, industrial, retail, public, and residential sectors.      His experience includes energy projects such as solar, wind, hydropower, gas, battery storage, and transmission facilities; infrastructure projects including transit, utility, and port facilities; industrial projects including large distribution centers and warehouses; a wide variety of retail projects ranging from single sites to destination shopping centers; public projects involving housing and other civic facilities; and residential developments ranging from infill projects to master-planned communities.

As head of the VNF real estate team, Josh is dedicated to guiding clients through complex real estate matters with effective solution-oriented counsel.

  • Experience
    • Advises national renewable energy developers on real property transactions for solar, wind, pumped-storage hydro, battery energy storage, and transmission projects in multiple states. Notable projects include acquisition due diligence for 400 MW and 1,200 MW closed-loop energy storage facilities.
    • Represents a national real estate investment manager as transactional counsel for industrial build-to-suit developments, guiding projects from acquisition and due diligence through completion and operations.
    • Provides real estate counsel to a regional transit agency on light-rail and transportation infrastructure projects, including multiple public-private, transit-oriented developments. Negotiated and drafted a comprehensive rights package for the largest transit-oriented development in the nation—a 36-acre, environmentally sustainable, mixed-use urban neighborhood centered around a major transit station.
    • Counsels private and publicly traded residential developers, including one of the nation’s top 10 homebuilders, on statewide land acquisitions and development for large-scale residential communities across Washington.
    • Represents a municipal water alliance in the acquisition and management of water supply and reservoir assets, including due diligence, transaction documentation, and ongoing easement, license, lease, and purchase and sale matters across multiple counties.
    • Represents a national retailer with more than 500 locations in connection with site acquisitions nationwide, including title and survey due diligence, and the negotiation and drafting of ground leases, purchase and sale agreements, and ancillary real estate documentation.
    • Advises one of the largest public utilities in the United States on securing complex real property rights for facilities located on contaminated properties to enable construction and operation of critical utility infrastructure.
    • Represents a regional Port in a range of real estate transactions, including the sale of Port-owned parcels for high-profile industrial and retail developments with significant regional economic impact.
  • Professional Affiliations

    King County Bar Association

    Washington State Bar Association

  • Awards & Honors
    "Washington Super Lawyers Magazine"
    Rising Star, 2016-2022
    Chambers USA
    Real Estate - Washington State: 2024-2025

    2013 ACLU Community Service Pro Bono Award

    Participation in an investigative report on curbing excessive force in Los Angeles county jails.
  • Bar & Court Admissions
    California State Bar
    Washington State Bar
  • Government Service

    U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California

    Judicial Extern, Hon. Oliver W. Wanger, 2008
  • News & Presentations

    News

    Presentations

    Title Law: A to Z(12/18/2017)
    Co-presenter, "Drafting Documents to Cure Defects"
    National Business Institute
    Seattle, WA
  • Thought Leadership

    Publications

    The Rating Agencies: Where We Have Been and Where Do We Go From Here(10/1/2009)
    Pepperdine Journal of Business, Entrepreneurships & the Law, Vol. III Issue I

Areas of Focus

Education

Pepperdine University School of Law J.D., 2010, cum laude, Order of the Coif, The Order of Barristers, Dean's List

California State University, Fresno B.A., 2005, summa cum laude, Dean's List, President's Honor List, Radin Community Service Scholar Award