Daniel S. Gonzales

Real Estate

Experience

Daniel S. Gonzales is a partner with Ferrari Ottoboni Caputo & Wunderling LLP. With over thirty years in private practice, Mr. Gonzales is a skilled and effective counselor and advocate. For over twenty years, Mr. Gonzales’s focus has been on California real estate law and associated business law matters, representing a wide variety of parties, including public agencies, private institutions, commercial enterprises, and individuals, in an extensive range of commercial and residential real estate transactions.

Mr. Gonzales represents developers, landowners and investors in the disposition, development and commercial use of California real property. He has extensive experience in creating and negotiating long-term ground leases, commercial, retail, industrial, office, and shopping center leases, and secured financing agreements for commercial, industrial, and multi-family residential real estate, shopping centers and office buildings, as well as representing both buyers and sellers in the negotiation, documentation, due diligence and closing of their purchase, sale and exchange transactions. His expertise includes planning and structuring corporations, general and limited partnerships and limited liability companies for real estate projects, disposition and development agreements, landlord/tenant issues, cotenancy arrangements, mechanic’s liens, escrow and title matters, boundary disputes, financing workouts, brokerage issues, construction and architectural contracts, water law, zoning, entitlement and subdivision matters, land use and environmental issues (including, inter alia, CEQA and CERCLA), easements and real property tax assessment appeals. Mr. Gonzales has also represented several California community college districts in the commercial development of their surplus lands, including analysis of the financial and legal implications of such projects, together with advice and counsel on related public agency law matters (including Brown Act issues, conflict of interest issues, Civic Center Act issues, Public Records Act issues, public financing issues, and public contracting issues). See how clients have responded to their experience with Mr. Gonzales.

Education

• J.D., Stanford Law School
• B.A. Government and International Studies, University of Notre Dame

Community and Association

Mr. Gonzales served for many years on the corporate boards of YMCA of Silicon Valley and Senior Housing Solutions, Inc., an elder housing nonprofit, where he was elected to several terms as board president. He was also a mediator with the City of Menlo Park Community Mediation Service for ten years, and chaired that agency for several years as well.

Mr. Gonzales is a longtime member of the Santa Clara County Bar Association and was recently named the recipient of its 2018 Professional Lawyer of the Year Award. He has held a number of leadership roles in that organization, including chair of the Minority Access (now Diversity) and Judiciary Committees, as well as serving on the Fair Election Practices Commission. He currently co-chairs the Real Property Section Executive Committee. Mr. Gonzales also sits on the Santa Clara County La Raza Lawyers Association and Santa Clara County La Raza Lawyers Charitable Foundation boards.

Born in San Antonio, Texas, Mr. Gonzales is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Stanford Law School, where he was a Notre Dame Scholar, a National Merit Scholar, a National Hispanic Scholar, and Managing Editor of the Stanford Journal of International Law. In addition to being a member of the State Bar of California, Mr. Gonzales is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Courts for the Northern and Eastern Districts of California, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and the U.S. Tax Court. He holds the highest Martindale-Hubbell AV rating, and has been included in Who’s Who in American Law.

Admissions

• State Bar of California
• U.S. District Courts, Northern and Eastern Districts of California
• United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit; U.S. Tax Court.

Personal

For relaxation, Mr. Gonzales is an avid amateur musician, playing rock, blues and jazz guitar and keyboards; at the 35th Anniversary of the Summer of Love concert held at Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco, he performed onstage with the 1960s hit musical group the Beau Brummels.

Documents

Download Mr. Gonzales's special report, created especially for owners of commercial properties and sign up for a bi-monthly newsletter.

For those interested in accessory dwelling units (ADUs), please visit “Silicon Valley ADUs,” an online resource featuring news about ADUs, as well as a FAQ on ADU basics.