Greenberg Traurig LLP shareholder Danielle Gonzalez’s cross-country work has made her an invaluable partner in structuring, financing and navigating real estate deals, including $4 billion in transactions for one client last year, making her one of eight real estate attorneys under 40 honored by Law360 as Rising Stars.
Based out of Miami, the Rising Star's real estate work takes her to markets across the country for deals involving all types of properties, from office buildings and industrial parks to multifamily properties and retail.
Gonzalez knew she wanted to become a lawyer from a young age. She graduated at the top of her class from Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations in just three years, after which she joined the Central Intelligence Agency as a special agent with top-secret security clearance. When she completed her CIA assignment, she enrolled in Georgetown University Law Center and graduated in the top 10 percent of her class.
After a summer associate gig with Greenberg Traurig, she joined the firm full-time in 2005 and was drawn to transactional work, where both sides of a deal work together to achieve a mutual goal rather than fight out an issue.
“Real estate was attractive to me because it’s a very tangible area of the law: You can drive down the street and see the projects that you’re working on, which is very exciting,” Gonzalez said. “The fact that it combines the transactional nature of the law as well as being able to physically see your project is something that was attractive to me.”