A Day in New York City with Land Use Attorney Eva Coruzzi Schneider

Eva Coruzzi Schneider is an associate at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP in the firm’s Real Estate, Energy, Land Use & Environmental Practice Group in New York. She helps developers obtain land use approvals to develop projects across the City, and represents purchasers, sellers, lenders and borrowers in real estate finance, purchase, sale and other transactions.

Eva has a deep commitment to pro bono work, advising non-profits on land use and environmental matters. She is the co-chair of her firm’s New York Sustainability Committee, a member of both the Land Use and Zoning Committee and the Environmental Law Committee at the New York City Bar Association, a Junior Board member of Breaking Ground, and a member of the Pro Bono Advisory Council for the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. Her typical day involves a bike and podcast commute, lunch at Rock Center, and a weeknight architecture or real estate event.

7:30am: I am very blessed to have a fiancé, Nick Cassab, who, in addition to being an architect, is also the definition of a morning person. Nick makes us coffee well before I am awake and leaves me a cup on my bedside table. I start my day sipping my coffee in bed and reading City & State and other local news. As a land use lawyer, it’s essential to stay up to date on new local laws, regulations, legislation, rezonings, text amendments and city and state policy initiatives.

Staying up to date also enables me to do something that I really enjoy: write about the impact that land use policy changes will have on the real estate market and New York City as a whole, whether I am writing a piece for our firm’s blog, or the New York Law Journal. These days, I’m tracking Mayor Eric Adam’s City of Yes initiatives related to zoning for carbon neutrality and economic opportunity. I also use this time to review any emails that came in while I was asleep, review my calendar, and make a mental map of my day.

8:00am: After thirty minutes of reading the news and catching up on emails, it’s time to get ready for work. While I get ready, Nick makes us smoothies for breakfast. I’m usually in a rush, because I am a time optimist. On my way out the door I grab my smoothie and my bike helmet, and off to work I go!

8:45am: I am an avid Citi Biker, and biking from the West Village to my office at 30 Rock is one of my favorite parts of my day. Lawyers tend to work long hours, so building daily exercise into my commute has been a game changer. I usually listen to an episode of The Daily by the New York Times, or Up First by NPR on my way in to catch up with national politics.

9:30am: Once at my desk, I take the first ten to fifteen minutes of my day to plan out all of my tasks and set my priorities. I usually check in with the partners and associates I work with to discuss what needs to be done before the end of the day.

9:45am: My day-to-day varies. I am lucky to work in a group that touches virtually every aspect of real estate law. On the whole, I spend half of my time on land use and environmental law, including some land use litigation, and the other half on real estate transactions from real estate finance to purchases and sales, and everything in between.

My days hinge on whether I have an upcoming closing, hearing, community board meeting, or a court filing. Depending on what’s ahead, I’ll either spend the better part of my morning drafting closing documents, reviewing diligence materials, drafting zoning applications, zoning memoranda, or researching case law.

12:30pm: Around this time, I usually grab lunch with colleagues at the food hall in Rock Center. Every other Wednesday, our entire real estate group — the partners, special counsels, associates, and paralegals — gets together for lunch. We spend time catching up on what everyone is working on, discussing interesting developments and trends in the real estate market and what we’ve learned from our recent deals. Also, around once a month, my firm does a lunch and learn for all the associates where we discuss different legal topics, or present projects we are working on or new legislative developments in our respective fields. At our most recent lunch and learn, I gave a short presentation on the City of Yes, zoning for Carbon Neutrality.

1:30pm: After lunch, I pick up on the work I started in the morning. I often have a meeting or two in the afternoon, whether it is with clients to review and discuss the status of their deal, development or case, an internal meeting with my team, or a firm-wide meeting to discuss developments in the land use world or transactional real estate market. In the afternoon, I usually grab a matcha for a pick-me-up.

7:00pm: On a normal day, I try to leave the office around 7:00pm or 7:30pm. This doesn’t always happen, especially when I have a closing, but I usually make it home in time for dinner. Nick tends to get home before I do, and has started prepping dinner before I walk in the door. When I get home, I help him finish making dinner, and we take this time right after work to catch up with each other about our days. Since we are in related fields, we have a lot to talk about! We refer to each other as our “secret weapons;” over the years, I’ve learned a lot from him, and he’s learned a lot from me.

We also often attend weeknight architecture and real estate events. When we do, we usually end our night by grabbing a slice from our favorite West Village pizza spot, Joe’s, before heading home.

8:30pm: Depending on the week, I might do some more work to get a jump start on the next day or finish anything I hadn’t yet been able to check off my to-do list. Pro bono work is important to me, and I like to focus on this in the later hours of the evening when email quiets down. Most recently, I’ve been helping a non-profit that is dedicated to environmental conservation to protect forest land in upstate New York.

10:00pm: I start winding down around this time. Nick and I usually will watch a show together — our current obsession is Only Murders in the Building — or if we want solo time, I’ll read a book or play guitar. Around 11:30 pm, I’m in bed, ready to sleep.