Locate an Eminent Domain Lawyer

Locating an eminent domain attorney who is experienced, prepared, and willing to fight the government to defend your home, business, farm, or investment property can be a challenge. Owners’ Counsel of America lawyers are committed to defending the rights of private property owners, large and small, across the country from government takings and excessive regulations. OCA attorneys represent property owners against local and state governments, transportation authorities, private and public utilities, redevelopment authorities, the Federal government, and other agencies granted the power of eminent domain.  Unlike many attorneys in this field who represent both owners and condemning authorities, Owners’ Counsel attorneys focus on private property owners.

Select your state using the interactive map or drop down menu above to locate an Owners’ Counsel of America eminent domain attorney in your state.

OCA attorneys assist landowners through every stage of the condemnation process – from pre-condemnation planning through negotiation, litigation when necessary, and appeal when warranted. Our attorneys are on the front lines of the landmark condemnation and property rights cases that have been decided or are currently before the courts in nearly every state and at the federal level.

OCA LAWYER INFORMATION

When you consult an OCA lawyer, you are talking to someone whose experience, credentials and reputation have been carefully reviewed OCA members are selected by their peers who also have extensive expertise with eminent domain. If you have an eminent domain issue, you don’t want to work with a lawyer who has only handled one or two eminent domain cases, or one who works primarily for government agencies taking property rights instead of primarily for owners defending property rights. You also don’t want a lawyer who hasn’t taken eminent domain cases all the way through trial – you want to be advised wisely about the potential risks, upsides and downsides of going to trial or accepting a settlement offer, and this is best done by lawyers who are very familiar with the unique trial issues these types of cases pose. You don’t want a criminal attorney or personal injury attorney who sees eminent domain cases as merely a potential new source of profit or income. You want an attorney whose practice is largely eminent domain, for many years, and whose primary concern is getting owners all the compensation they are legally entitled to and pursuing client goals based on the particular facts of each case.

OCA lawyers are extensively vetted to ensure that you can trust they know this area of law extremely well, have experience in handling complex condemnation matters, and have been the primary lawyer in numerous eminent domain trials. They need to have a great deal of knowledge not only about condemnation law, but about the valuation of real estate, as well as knowledge about land use, traffic engineering, environmental issues, and other common types of issues that relate to condemnation cases. They need to be able to determine what types of damages you can claim, as well as how to quantify and provide sufficient evidence to support those claims. They need to have demonstrated to their peers that they put their client’s interests above their own, not wasting time fighting about issues that there is not a reasonable basis to dispute. Eminent domain cases must be a substantial portion of their legal experience and practice, not another type of law, and their eminent domain work must be primarily for property owners and not condemning authorities.

When you select an attorney, it is very hard to know what questions to ask to ensure that you are hiring one who really knows the relevant area of the law well. Owners Counsel was founded in part to help with this by having experienced lawyers across the nation screen, interview, and select (by invitation only) other eminent domain lawyers. Lawyers know what questions to ask one another to determine level of expertise and experience. Lawyers know which awards and designations are achieved by merit and are truly honors versus “pay to play” designations where the primary selection criteria is paying money for a credential. Leaders in the field of property law know who the other leaders are, and how to spot up and coming talented lawyers who are likely to be future leaders as they obtain more experience. If you select an OCA attorney, you are selecting an attorney that top eminent domain lawyers in the country have screened and trust with their client referrals.

Even after a lawyer is vetted and becomes an OCA member, there is a regular review of their practice to ensure that they continue to meet the requirements for membership.

Eminent domain is an area of the law most lawyers do not practice. There are nuances and complexities in this area of the law that continue to evolve all the time. There is no other non-profit group that extensively reviews eminent domain attorneys in the way OCA does. If you want excellent advice and representation about the taking of your property and your rights, consult an OCA attorney with confidence knowing that they have passed rigorous screening by their peers.

Note that typically OCA attorneys do not deal with code violation condemnations, which are not based on a right to take property, but rather based on specific code violations or safety hazards.  The applicable laws in those types of cases are very different and do not fall within the “takings jurisprudence” that covers direct, inverse, and regulatory takings.