When five Big Law real estate partners launched Crosbie Gliner Schiffman Southard & Swanson LLP in San Diego in July 2013, their stated objective was to build a “next generation” commercial real estate boutique — a firm that retained Big Law capability while departing from the hourly billing structures and institutional overhead that define large firm practice. A decade later, the firm had grown to 25 attorneys and 7 paralegals, all carrying Big Law or senior in-house counsel experience, and had been ranked by Chambers & Partners as a top California real estate law firm for six consecutive years.
Overview
Crosbie Gliner Schiffman Southard & Swanson LLP — known as CGS3 — is a commercial real estate law firm operating exclusively in the commercial real estate sector. Founded in 2013 in San Diego, it expanded to a second office in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles. The firm’s founding partners — represented by the initials in the firm name, Crosbie, Gliner, Schiffman, Southard, and Swanson — each brought decades of Big Law real estate experience.
The firm’s practice covers the complete real estate transaction cycle: acquisition and disposition, commercial leasing, construction and development, land use and environmental matters, financing, entity formation and tax planning, distressed asset workouts, and dispute resolution. No single phase of a commercial real estate project falls outside the firm’s scope.
Industry recognition has been consistent. The firm holds 2025 Best Law Firms, Super Lawyers, and Lawyer International Legal 100 designations. Chambers & Partners has ranked CGS3 among California’s top real estate law firms for six consecutive years. Individual attorneys have been recognized in Best Lawyers, San Diego Business Journal 40 Under 40, Women of Influence in Law, and CONNECT Media Lawyers in Real Estate. SD Metro has named CGS3 one of San Diego’s best law firms.
The firm celebrates its ten-year anniversary in 2023 and continues to handle complex deals: record-setting retail leases, hospital expansion transactions, life science sector transactions, and what was described as San Francisco’s largest pandemic-era sublease.
Practice Areas
Commercial Leasing: Lease transactions for office, retail, industrial, and mixed-use properties, representing both landlords and tenants. The firm has been involved in record-setting retail leasing transactions, demonstrating capacity for complex, high-value lease negotiations in addition to more routine commercial leases.
Real Estate Acquisitions and Dispositions: Purchase and sale of commercial properties at all scales — from single-asset transactions to portfolio sales. Due diligence, contract negotiation, title review, and closing coordination are all handled in-house.
Construction and Development: Legal support through the development process, from predevelopment agreements through construction contracts, lien waivers, construction loan documentation, and project completion. The firm’s involvement in hospital expansion and life science transactions reflects experience with institutionally complex development projects.
Land Use, Environmental, and Natural Resources: Evelyn Heidelberg leads the firm’s Land Use and Environmental Resources practice group, handling entitlements, permitting, CEQA compliance, environmental review, and natural resource issues that arise in the development and operation of real property. Land use is often the longest lead-time element of a development project, and specialist capability in this area is a meaningful firm asset.
Financing: Commercial real estate financing from the perspective of borrowers, lenders, and equity investors. Construction loans, bridge loans, permanent financing, and mezzanine structures all require legal attention to documentation and due diligence that differs meaningfully between transaction types.
Entity Formation and Tax: The legal and tax structure of how a real estate investment or development is organized — the choice among LLC, partnership, REIT, or other entity forms, and the tax consequences of each — has direct economic impact on deal returns. The firm handles these matters as an integrated part of deal structuring rather than as an afterthought.
Distressed Assets and Workouts: When commercial real estate transactions or portfolios encounter financial distress, loan workouts, forbearance agreements, deed-in-lieu arrangements, and related restructuring become necessary. CGS3’s experience across the full deal cycle gives it practical knowledge of how these assets were structured when healthy, which informs how they should be approached in distress.
Dispute Resolution and Litigation: Real estate disputes — landlord-tenant conflicts, purchase agreement failures, construction defects, and title issues — require litigation or alternative dispute resolution. The firm handles these as an integrated part of its commercial real estate practice rather than routing clients to separate litigation counsel.
Sustainability and Renewable Energy: The firm advises on legal aspects of sustainability initiatives and renewable energy projects in the real estate context, including green leases, solar installations, and related environmental compliance.
Attorney Profiles
Sean Southard is a founding partner who brought Big Law real estate partnership experience to the firm’s founding in 2013. He has described CGS3 as one of the largest real estate departments in San Diego. Bar admission: California.
Evelyn Heidelberg is a partner who leads the firm’s Land Use and Environmental Resources practice group. She also brings prior Big Law experience. Bar admission: California.
Priya Huggett is a partner in the San Diego office. Specific credentials beyond her role and California bar admission are not publicly listed in available sources.
Alison Pappas is a partner in the Los Angeles office. Specific credentials beyond her role and California bar admission are not publicly listed in available sources.
Chanel Di Blasi is an attorney in the San Diego office. Additional credentials are not publicly listed.
David Dick is of counsel in the San Diego office. Additional credentials are not publicly listed.
The firm employs 25 attorneys and 7 paralegals in total, all described as having Big Law or senior in-house counsel backgrounds.
Location and Service Area
12750 High Bluff Drive, Suite 250, San Diego, CA 92130 (primary office)
Second office: 528 Palisades Drive, Suite 532, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
Phone: 858-367-7676 (San Diego); 424-320-9276 (Pacific Palisades)
Website: www.cgs3.com/
The firm serves clients in San Diego and Los Angeles, and handles transactions throughout California and nationally. Complex deals — hospital expansions, life science developments, major retail leases — have taken the firm into markets beyond Southern California.
Client Focus
CGS3 serves institutional real estate clients: developers, investors, landlords, tenants, lenders, and businesses involved in significant commercial real estate activity. The firm’s Big Law alumni team is calibrated for clients whose transactions are complex enough to require experienced specialists rather than generalists, but who prefer the accessibility and economic model of a boutique.
Life science sector clients, healthcare systems, retail and restaurant chains, institutional investors, and private developers all appear within the firm’s described client base. The Pacific Palisades/Los Angeles office extends the firm’s geographic reach to serve clients centered in the Los Angeles market.
The firm supports the University of San Diego Advancing Black Leadership and Scholarship Fund and contributes to the New Children’s Museum and SES Tennis Center, among other local organizations.
FAQ
What does Chambers & Partners’ ranking mean for a commercial real estate firm?
Chambers & Partners is a legal ranking organization that assesses law firms through interviews with clients, opposing counsel, and industry participants. A Chambers ranking — particularly one sustained for six consecutive years — reflects independent verification of the firm’s standing in its market beyond what the firm itself claims. CGS3’s six-year consecutive Chambers recognition as a top California real estate firm is a meaningful third-party endorsement.
Does the firm handle residential real estate?
CGS3 practices exclusively in commercial real estate. Residential transactions are outside the firm’s scope by design. The firm serves buyers, sellers, developers, lenders, and tenants in commercial real estate, including office, retail, industrial, multifamily, and mixed-use properties.
What is the firm’s approach to land use entitlements?
Evelyn Heidelberg heads a dedicated Land Use and Environmental Resources practice group — a level of specialization that signals genuine depth in California’s complex entitlement processes, CEQA requirements, and environmental permitting. For development projects where land use approvals represent the critical path, having specialist counsel within the same firm as the transaction team is a practical advantage.
What are some examples of notable transactions the firm has handled?
The firm has been involved in hospital expansion transactions, life science sector deals, and San Francisco’s largest pandemic-era sublease. It has handled record-setting retail leasing deals and complex commercial sales in the San Diego region. These transactions reflect the size and complexity of the matters the firm takes on.
How is a boutique real estate firm different from a large law firm for a commercial real estate client?
CGS3 was founded on the premise that experienced Big Law real estate attorneys, freed from large firm overhead and billing structures, could provide comparable transactional capability with greater accessibility and economic efficiency. The firm’s 25 attorneys — all with Big Law or senior in-house backgrounds — represent the substantive experience component, while the boutique structure provides the service model those founders felt was lacking at larger firms.
Closing
Ten years after five Big Law partners set out to build a different kind of commercial real estate firm, CGS3 has sustained a consistent record: six consecutive Chambers rankings, a team of 25 attorneys carrying Big Law credentials, landmark transactions including hospital expansions and pandemic-era sublets, and a Law360 recognition as IP Practice Group of the Year adapted by practitioners who understand that the commercial real estate lifecycle rewards firms that can handle every stage. The San Diego base and Pacific Palisades extension give the firm a Southern California footprint suited to the geographic spread of its institutional clientele.