James G. Benjamin

Jim Benjamin is a real estate and business attorney at Ireland Stapleton Pryor & Pascoe. He is widely recognized for his work in real estate, banking, and lending matters. Jim represents developers, landowners, banking and lending institutions, landlords, commercial tenants, and lenders, borrowers, sellers, and purchasers involved in a broad range of real estate assets, including vacant land, subdivisions, office buildings, apartments, shopping centers, and mixed use developments.

Jim’s practice focuses on commercial real estate transactions, including acquisitions and dispositions, leasing, financing, condominium development, land development, and condominium conversions. He also advises institutional clients on lending matters, including asset based financing and real estate secured transactions. His experience includes real estate loans, commercial leasing and ground leases, condominium and common interest community regime formation, reciprocal easement agreements, and limited liability company formations.

Jim is frequently retained as an expert witness in court proceedings and arbitrations, where he provides testimony and opinions on complex real estate law issues and on the applicable standards of care for attorneys handling real estate transactions.

A respected educator in his field, Jim is a frequent lecturer for continuing legal education programs, teaching other attorneys substantive real estate law and ethics for transactional lawyers. He serves as Managing Editor of CLE of Colorado, Inc.’s book on Colorado real estate forms, which covers purchase and sale agreements, listing agreements, deeds, 1031 tax deferred exchanges, deeds of trust, promissory notes, leases, easements, closing documents, forcible entry and detainer actions, and mechanics’ liens.

Before joining Ireland Stapleton, Jim led the real estate boutique law firm Benjamin and Cohen from 1990 to 2019. He has also served as head of the real estate department at a large regional law firm and at the Denver office of a national law firm.

Jim has been selected as Barrister’s Best Real Estate Lawyer in Colorado by Law Week Colorado for multiple years. He has also been named among the Top 100 Lawyers in Colorado by Super Lawyers, is listed in Best Lawyers in America for Real Estate Law, is band rated by Chambers and Partners in Real Estate, and holds an AV Preeminent rating from Martindale Hubbell Judicial Edition.

Education 

• J.D., Loyola University Los Angeles, 1976
• B.A. Political Science, University of Southern California, 1971, Cum Laude

Admissions 

• Admitted to practice in California
• Admitted to practice in Colorado
• Admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court

• Selected to The Best Lawyers in America® for Real Estate Law, 2020-2025
• Selected to Colorado Super Lawyers® for Real Estate Law, 2006-2023
• Selected to 5280 Magazine’s Top Lawyers List for Real Estate Law, 2020-2023
• Selected to Chambers USA for Real Estate Law, 2019 – 2023
• Selected to Colorado Super Lawyers® for Business Mortgage and Refinance, 2006 – 2020
• Recognized by Law Week Colorado as Barrister’s Best for Real Estate Law 2016 – 2019
  
• Selected to Colorado Super Lawyers® list of Top 100 lawyers

• Purchaser/Borrower in the acquisition and financing of a conglomerate of apartments at a purchase price more than $150 million involving a syndication of lenders
• Purchaser of numerous high- rise office buildings in Downtown Denver and suburbs
• Purchasers of hotels in Colorado, Wyoming, North Dakota, and Tennessee
• Purchasers of shopping centers
• Creation of Bramblett tax transactions for land owners, who subsequently developed the properties into single-family residential subdivisions
• Purchasers and sellers in the Section 1031, IRC, tax-deferred exchanges
• Land owners granting conservation easements on their property
• Shopping center and office building complex owners in the creation of reciprocal easement agreements
• Landlords in leasing high-rise office buildings and retail spaces in shopping centers and mixed- use developments
• Tenants in leasing commercial office space and retail space
• Creation of condominium projects and conversion of apartments to condominiums
  
• Acquisition and financing and FHA refinancing of mobile home communities

Involvement

• Arapahoe County Bar Association
• Colorado Bar Association, Chair of the Joint Management
• Denver Bar Association
• State Bar of California
• Denver Bar Association, President
• Colorado and Denver Bar Associations, Building Task Force, Chair
• Healing Waters Project, Volunteer
  This organization teaches soldiers and veterans with disabilities the art and healing attributes of fly fishing
• Osage Initiatives, General Counsel
  This a project involving the affiliation of for-profit and non-profit entities to deal with the issue of homelessness population in Colorado.
• Denver University Sturm College of Law, Tribal Wills Project, Supervising Attorney
• Girl Scouts Mile High Council, Real Estate Counsel
• Department of Regulatory Agencies, Blue Ribbon Committee Member
• Worked on a deal regarding the sunsetting of real estate broker regulation and affiliated business arrangements
• Bradford Publishing Company, Member of the real estate publication advisory board
• Colorado and Denver Bar Association, Building Task Force, Chair
  The Task Force selected the Bar offices for the associations, and then negotiated and documented the lease and construction of the premises
• Colorado Legislature on Adverse Possession, Advisory and Drafting Counsel
• Committee that Drafted the Beneficiary Deed Act and Drafted Amendments to the Limited Liability Company Act, Member

Publications

• Leases and Promissory Notes” Real Estate Deskbook Seminar, 2019
• “Types of Conveyance Deeds and When to Use Them”, CLE of Colorado, Inc., 2016
• “Roof Top Leases”, Annual Real Estate Symposium, CLE of Colorado, Inc., 2011
• Program Chair, 23rd Annual Real Estate Symposium, CLE of Colorado, Inc.