Ashley Breakfield represents large-scale urban developers, real estate investors, renewable energy companies, and private property owners in sophisticated land use and real estate matters.

In the land use realm, Ashley specializes in advising clients on Bay Area mid-scale project development strategies, beginning at the project’s inception with evaluating a site for possible uses and strategizing on development plans. She then works to shepherd the project through the administrative process, including evaluating, negotiating and obtaining permits and other entitlements and administrative approvals, and counseling clients on environmental review under both CEQA and NEPA.

In the commercial real estate aspect of her practice, Ashley’s transactional background is equally extensive. Her experience includes counseling developers and real estate investors with acquisitions, dispositions, and leasing of office, industrial, retail, mixed use, and agricultural real estate. In addition, Ashley’s real estate practice includes significant experience counseling clients on the negotiation and documentation of various financial arrangements, including acquisition, construction, mezzanine, and permanent financing.

Prior to joining Farella’s Real Estate Industry Group, Ashley was a member of our Environmental Law practice group. In that role, she counseled clients on regulatory and compliance matters involving state and federal environmental, land use, and natural resources laws and statutes, and represented clients in state and federal court, as well as before various administrative agencies and boards. This experience is frequently an integral part of her real estate work.

Ashley’s approach to her practice is forthright, practical, and results-oriented. Personable and straightforward, she is skilled at negotiating and communicating, emphasizing that both parties would like to get a deal done, and striving, whenever possible, to collaborate in the interest of getting to “yes” a little faster. Combined with her deep, firsthand knowledge of the ins and outs of the Bay Area real estate market, she’s an effective and persuasive advocate for her client’s interests.

Ashley served as a judicial extern for the Honorable Edward M. Chen of the United States District Court, Northern District of California, and as a legal intern for the California Attorney General’s Office – Natural Resources Section and the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment.