Joseph S. Burns is a partner at Doyle & Hassman, LLC, and a commercial real estate and business attorney. He is experienced in all facets of commercial real estate law, including sales and acquisitions, leasing, and the formation and administration of homeowners’ associations. His practice also focuses heavily on business law, including entity formation, mergers and acquisitions, regulatory issues, the protection of intellectual property, and the drafting, review, and negotiation of a wide variety of agreements.
Prior to joining Doyle & Hassman, Joe was General Counsel for a real estate development and construction firm, where he handled all of the company’s legal needs, including: drafting and negotiating retail, office, industrial, and build-to-suit lease agreements; landlord-tenant matters; transactional matters, such as the sale of industrial lots; drafting and negotiating construction agreements; advising on environmental issues; drafting homeowners’ association declarations; residential property closings; drafting and negotiating easement agreements; and eminent domain matters.
After law school, Joe joined Cors & Bassett, where he became a shareholder and served as a member of the firm’s executive committee. There, he represented a variety of local and regional businesses, providing both business and legal advice, and handling all areas of their corporate legal needs. Joe also provided on-site legal services for one of the firm’s largest clients, which services included negotiating proposed changes to the client’s software-as-a-service agreements; reviewing and negotiating commercial lease agreements for its office locations throughout the country; and handling various regulatory and compliance issues.
Before briefly leaving private practice to work as in house counsel, Joe was named to the Ohio Super Lawyers Rising Stars list from 2008 to 2015, a peer-rated selection process that uses peer nomination, independent research, and peer evaluations (the Rising Stars list recognizes no more than 2.5 percent of attorneys in each state).
Joe graduated summa cum laude, order of the curia, from the Salmon P. Chase College of Law. During law school, he was a member of law review, serving as its symposium editor. Joe also graduated from Northern Kentucky University, summa cum laude, with a bachelor’s degree in English.
Joe is a member of the Commercial Real Estate Group of Greater Cincinnati. Past volunteer services include The Carnegie (board member), Mercantile Library (member and former steering committee for the Niehoff Lecture), the Ohio Justice and Policy Center, and Keep Covington Beautiful (board member).
In April 2019, Joe did a podcast with The Brand Sketch to help answer listener questions concerning trademarks. Listen to the podcast HERE.
PRACTICE AREAS
