Akerman is proud to share that three lawyers in the Real Estate Practice Group have been recognized by GlobeSt.com as “Women of Influence” for 2025. Real Estate partners Carol Faber and Anne Marie Garavaglia have been named to the “Women of Influence” list within the CRE Legal Counsel category, and Associate Rachel Perez has been named a “Rising Star.” The list recognizes women in the commercial real estate sector who have impacted the market and significantly driven the industry to new heights via their outstanding success.
Carol has extensive experience representing clients on a wide range of complex commercial real estate transactions, including financing, leasing and ground leasing, acquisitions and sales, and distressed loan and property transactions — ranging from several million to many hundreds of millions of dollars — on vacant land and developed property of all kinds, including industrial, office, shopping centers and retail properties, condominiums, multi-family, construction projects, complex mixed-use projects, and hospitality. Her clients include major financial institutions, non-institutional lenders, real estate companies, servicers, and domestic and international investors. She is experienced in representing parties on both sides of all of these transactions. Her financing experience includes mortgage loans, construction loans, mezzanine loans, real estate related asset-based loans, leasehold mortgages, securitized loans, and loan participations, with multi-party capital stacks, preferred equity and intercreditor, subordination, and recognition agreements. As the co-chair of Akerman's national Distressed Property Practice, she has considerable experience in distressed debt, representing institutional lenders and holders of debt in connection with loan workouts, restructures, forbearances, short sales, sales of loan documents, re-sales after foreclosure, deed-in-lieu transactions, commercial foreclosures, and property, loan, and judgment sales. Carol has previously been recognized by Real Estate Forum in 2011 and 2017 as a National Woman of Influence in real estate.
Anne Marie has nearly 30 years of experience in commercial real estate finance and capital markets as both an in-house attorney for Fortune 50 corporations and as a partner in Am Law 100 ranked law firms. She focuses her practice on real estate capital markets, securitizations, structured and commercial finance, loan portfolio management, warehouse/repo lending facilities, loan servicing, loan originations, financial work-outs, and restructurings. She represents traditional institutional lenders, private debt and equity funds, and non-traditional lenders in a variety of transactions.
Rachel focuses her practice on commercial real estate transactions, including joint ventures and purchase and sale agreements, for retailers, owners of office buildings, shopping centers, hotels, and industrial properties. She represents clients in real estate joint venture transactions and handles the development and execution of their business strategies, including the negotiation of venture documentation and acquisition transactions involving all types of asset classes. Rachel has also represented fund sponsors and investors in structuring, forming, investing in, and offering private equity funds.