JB Summers PLLC — Commercial Counsel for Real Estate Owners, Operators & Lenders

Q: Are you willing to look at a file that another attorney already worked on?

Often yes — particularly post-judgment matters or workouts where a fresh set of senior eyes can reveal new avenues.

Practice Areas

Three pillars. One operating philosophy.

Every commercial relationship has a lifecycle — the deal that creates it, the workout that saves it, and the enforcement that recovers what's owed when it ends in default. We handle each phase under one roof, and we serve as ongoing outside counsel for principals who'd rather have one trusted relationship than five specialist firms.

Leasing & Transactions

High-volume commercial lease drafting and negotiation for landlords, tenants, and franchisees. Acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures, ground leases, and amendments across retail, office, industrial, and mixed-use. Documents drafted by counsel who has spent years on the litigation side of leases that didn't hold up.

Distressed Assets & Workouts

Loan workouts, deed-in-lieu, discounted payoffs, lender negotiations, rescue capital structuring, recapitalizations, and acquisitions of mispriced commercial assets. Counsel that has been on every side of the table — borrower, lender, receiver, and buyer.

Litigation & Collections

Commercial real estate disputes, lease enforcement, lender enforcement, and creditor recovery — including MCA, factoring, equipment finance, vendor, and corporate creditor matters. Pre-suit demand through full enforcement against assets in any U.S. jurisdiction.

Litigation & Enforcement

When the deal breaks, the work is just beginning.

Most commercial files don't end in court. The ones that do require counsel who has been there before. We litigate commercial real estate and contract disputes, enforce lender and creditor rights, and turn judgments into actual recoveries — across state lines, against evasive obligors, and on contested files other firms have given up on.

Commercial Litigation & Disputes

Real estate disputes, lease enforcement actions, lender remedies, partnership and operating-agreement disputes, breach-of-contract litigation, and emergency relief. We litigate the cases we file and we resolve most of them on terms our clients prefer to verdict.

For sophisticated parties, the value of senior counsel isn't just trying the case — it's knowing which cases should never get there.

Collections & Judgment Enforcement

Commercial debt recovery for landlords, lenders, MCA platforms, factors, equipment finance, vendors, and corporate creditors. Pre-suit demand, settlement negotiation, litigation when warranted, and full post-judgment enforcement — domestication, levies, restraints, charging orders, fraudulent transfer claims, and receiverships.

A judgment is a piece of paper until someone collects it. We turn paper into recoveries.

Lead counsel from New York. Nationwide reach through a managed network of vetted local counsel.

The Approach

Senior. Direct. Built around how deals actually work.

The practice was built on a simple idea: counsel who has spent years litigating commercial deals that went wrong, and years inside major real estate operators watching how deals connect, will draft, negotiate, and enforce differently than counsel who has only done one of those things.

That's the operating premise. The lease draft is sharper because we know what gets fought over. The workout strategy is sharper because we've watched lenders, sponsors, and receivers move through these cycles before. The enforcement plan is sharper because we know how the deal was papered.

For many of our clients, that translates into an ongoing outside-counsel relationship — the first call when anything legal touches their business. One senior attorney across leasing, acquisitions, workouts, lender issues, disputes, and recovery. One relationship, lifecycle deep.

Principal-Led Every matter is staffed and run by senior counsel. No associate hand-offs, no layers between you and the work, no partner who sells the file and disappears.
Outside Counsel Model We work as ongoing outside counsel for clients who'd rather have one trusted relationship than five specialist firms. Lifecycle deep, business-aware, decision-ready.
Nationwide Reach Lead counsel from New York with a managed network of local counsel in every U.S. jurisdiction. One engagement, one point of contact, one strategy.
Aligned Pricing Flat fees, hourly, hybrid contingency, and capped engagements where the structure fits. We price for outcomes, not hours.

About

Joshua Summers, Esq.

Joshua Summers, Founder & Principal Attorney

Origins

Josh started his career trying cases. Over fifteen years as a commercial litigator, he handled real estate disputes, lender-borrower fights, partnership and operating-agreement disputes, lease enforcement, fraud and breach of fiduciary claims, and the kind of complex commercial litigation where multi-million-dollar outcomes turn on language someone drafted years earlier without thinking it would ever matter. The work taught him, definitively, what gets fought over when deals go wrong — and what good drafting looks like before they do.

The Operator Years

From there, Josh moved in-house. He served as General Counsel and senior leasing executive at major real estate companies, where he ran legal across portfolios spanning retail, office, industrial, and mixed-use assets. The work spanned institutional clients — REITs, hedge funds, major real estate operators and developers — and a parallel roster of private clients including high-net-worth individuals, celebrities, and professional athletes who needed senior counsel without the BigLaw filter. End-to-end work: lease drafting and negotiation, acquisitions and dispositions, financings, joint ventures, vendor and construction matters, lender relationships, and the workouts and disputes that came with portfolio-scale operations. That seat is where his perspective on how deals actually move through a business was earned — not from books, not from outside-counsel memos, but from sitting in the room when the decisions got made and living with their consequences.

The Practice Today

JB Summers PLLC was built to bring that combined perspective — litigator's eye, operator's experience — to commercial principals who would rather work with one senior attorney across the full life of their business than coordinate among specialist firms. The practice is organized around three pillars (leasing and transactions, distressed assets and workouts, and litigation and collections), but most clients use the firm as ongoing outside counsel — the matter type changes, the relationship persists.

Personal

Josh holds a J.D. from Cardozo School of Law and is admitted in New York. He lives on Long Island with his wife and three children — two athlete sons and a fashionista daughter. NYC and Chicago Marathon finisher, Tough Mudder, and a championship-winning Little League coach.

Who We Work With

Sophisticated owners, operators, lenders, and creditors.

Commercial Landlords & Owners

Multi-tenant shopping center owners, office and industrial landlords, ground lessors, and family offices who need leasing volume done right and defaults pursued aggressively.

Real Estate Operators & Developers

Development companies and operators who need outside general counsel across leasing, acquisitions, financing, JVs, lender relationships, and the disputes that occasionally come with the business.

National Tenants & Franchisees

Multi-unit operators and franchisees rolling out across the country who need consistent, fast lease review and workout counsel when stores underperform.

Lenders & Special Servicers

Bridge lenders, debt funds, and special servicers — for both deal documentation and post-default workout, enforcement, and collection.

Investors & Sponsors

Real estate sponsors, syndicators, and family offices acquiring distressed and transitional commercial assets. Acquisition counsel that understands the workout side of the table.

Creditors & MCA Platforms

MCA funders, factors, equipment finance lenders, vendors, trade creditors, and corporate creditors with portfolios of contested receivables and judgments to enforce.

Common Questions

Questions principals ask before retaining us.

Do you serve as outside general counsel for businesses?

Yes. Many of our clients use us as ongoing outside counsel — the first call when anything legal touches the business. That includes real estate operators, developers, lenders, and creditors who'd rather have one senior attorney across all matters than coordinate among multiple specialist firms.

How do you handle multi-state matters without multiple law firm relationships?

One engagement, one point of contact, one strategy. We act as lead counsel from New York and direct a vetted network of local counsel in each jurisdiction where we file or enforce. The client manages one relationship; we manage the rest.

Can you collect on a judgment from another state?

Yes. We routinely domesticate foreign and sister-state judgments under the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign Judgments Act and pursue assets across state lines. If the judgment is from another attorney and they couldn't collect, that's exactly the work we do.

How do you structure fees?

It depends on the engagement. Transactional and leasing work is typically flat fee or hourly. Workouts and litigation are hourly or hybrid. Collections matters can be flat fee, hourly, contingency, or hybrid depending on the size of the file and the obligor's collectibility profile. We tell you what we think makes sense before we start.

Are you willing to look at a file that another attorney already worked on?

Often yes — particularly post-judgment matters where collection has stalled or workouts where the prior approach didn't get there. A second set of senior eyes on a stuck file frequently reveals avenues that weren't pursued.