Rachel Sigmund McGinley is the Chair of Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s Cooperative & Condominium Representation Group. Her practice focuses on serving as outside general counsel to condominium and cooperative boards and representing sponsors, developers, unit owners, and shareholders in sophisticated real estate matters throughout New York.
As Chair of the firm’s Cooperative & Condominium Representation Group, Rachel serves as a trusted legal advisor to condominium and cooperative boards, counseling clients on matters ranging from day-to-day operations to complex governance, regulatory, transactional, and strategic issues. She works closely with boards and managing agents to navigate challenging or sensitive issues, assess legal and practical considerations, and develop strategies responsive to each client’s particular needs and objectives. Her practice includes the interpretation, negotiation, and enforcement of condominium declarations and bylaws, proprietary leases, offering plans, alteration agreements, commercial leases and licenses, easements, access agreements, and other governing and property-related documents.
Rachel counsels boards on corporate governance and fiduciary matters, including board authority and decision-making, elections and voting procedures, conflicts of interest, shareholder and unit-owner disputes, books and records requests, amendments to governing documents, transfers and sales, sublets, alterations, use restrictions, assessments, insurance issues, and the allocation of repair and maintenance responsibilities. Her practice also encompasses disputes involving breaches of governing documents, fraud, property and access rights, easements, limited common elements, and the respective rights and obligations of boards, unit owners, and shareholders. Rachel works closely with board members, managing agents, engineers, architects, accountants, insurance professionals, and other consultants to provide practical, business-oriented guidance on both routine building operations and complex, high-stakes matters.
A significant component of Rachel’s practice involves major building projects, construction-related matters, and construction defect claims. She represents condominium and cooperative boards in connection with façade restoration and Local Law compliance, structural and building-system repairs, capital improvement projects, construction contracts, access and license agreements, and disputes involving contractors, design professionals, neighboring properties, and individual owners. Rachel has substantial experience investigating and resolving construction defect claims involving façades, roofs, waterproofing, HVAC and mechanical systems, water infiltration, and other common building systems. She works closely with engineers and other experts to analyze responsibility, develop remediation and claims strategies, and negotiate resolutions with sponsors, developers, contractors, design professionals, and other responsible parties.
Rachel also has significant experience representing sponsors and developers in connection with major residential developments. Her practice includes the preparation, review, interpretation, and amendment of condominium and cooperative offering plans and related governing documents, as well as advising sponsors regarding their rights and obligations throughout the development, offering, sales, transition, and post-transition phases of a project. Rachel advises clients on sponsor-controlled boards, unsold units, successor sponsor rights, disclosure obligations, amendments to offering plans and governing documents, transfers, and disputes involving sponsors, boards, unit owners, and shareholders.
When disputes arise, Rachel represents clients in negotiations, administrative proceedings, and litigation. She regularly advises clients on dispute strategy and risk assessment from the earliest stages of a potential claim through resolution, including evaluating litigation exposure and negotiating settlements. Her approach emphasizes practical, business-oriented solutions designed to protect her clients’ legal and financial interests.
Rachel has been with Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. for more than fifteen years. She first joined the firm through its externship program in 2010 during her first year of law school and subsequently participated in the firm’s summer associate program before joining the firm as an attorney in 2013. She has since developed and now leads a practice focused on the complex legal, regulatory, governance, operational, and construction issues confronting New York condominium and cooperative communities.
Rachel earned her B.S., magna cum laude, from Pennsylvania State University’s Schreyer Honors College and her J.D., cum laude, from Rutgers University School of Law. She is admitted to practice law in New York and New Jersey.
Rachel has authored articles addressing sophisticated cooperative and condominium corporate and governance issues for The Cooperator. She also co-authored an article addressing mortgage foreclosures in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis that was published nationally in the American Bar Association Real Property, Trust and Estate Law Section’s Probate & Property magazine and the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Mortgage Banking magazine.
Rachel is a member of the New York State Bar Association, the New York County Lawyers Association, and the New Jersey State Bar Association. She is also a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society.
Honors & Recognition
Rachel has been selected to the New York Metro Super Lawyers Rising Stars list in the area of Real Estate every year since 2017.