Christy McElhaney

Counsel @Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates

New York, NY, US

Christy McElhaney is active in all areas of Skadden’s real estate practice, including financings, workouts, acquisitions, developments, leasing, partnerships and joint ventures. Ms. McElhaney has broad experience representing both borrowers and lenders in complex real estate financial transactions, including capital market and bank syndicated loans, construction loans, originations, participations, multitranche loan structures, reorganizations and workouts. Her practice includes the representation of buyers andsellers of distressed properties, loans and investments; “loan to own” investors; and preferred equity investors. She also has represented many clients in the acquisition, financing, development and disposition of office buildings, hotels, data centers and “ground up” residential developments. She has specific experience in representing hospitality clients.During a two-year period away from Skadden, Ms. McElhaney was a partner in a large Florida law firm representing developers in the acquisition, development, financing and disposition of Florida real estate assets.Ms. McElhaney’s joint venture practice includes the representation of several Canadian insurance companies in equity investments in ventures to make opportunistic acquisitions of mortgage-back securities; a private hotel fund in an investment to purchase defaulted mezzanine debt secured by various hotels; a South Korean corporate group in a venture with an international asset management company to develop several hotels in Manhattan; and a national sports league in a joint venture to develop a sports-related, retail concept in Europe.Ms. McElhaney also has an active leasing practice, specializing in “headquarters” leasing and restaurant leasing. She has extensive experience in the preparation and negotiation of subleases.

Penn State University

Bachelor's degree

American University, Washington College of Law

Doctor of Law (JD)