Adam Leitman Bailey is an American lawyer who practices residential and commercial real estate law as founder of Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. He was involved in several notable legal cases.

The Martindale-Hubbell peer review system gave Bailey an AV rating, its highest category.

Early life and Education

Bailey was born in Bayside, Queens. He moved to California at age five and later moved back to New Milford, New Jersey, where he graduated from New Milford High School. He graduated with honors from Rutgers University and Syracuse University College of Law.

During his time at Syracuse Law, he was elected to the Moot Court team. Bailey studied under respected lawyers Travis Lewin and Deborah Kenn. Adam Leitman Bailey received New Milford High School’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Legal Practice and Notable Cases

In 2008, Bailey formed a non-profit entity known as "Save Harlem" to challenge certain zoning changes being proposed by the City of New York, and to serve as lead plaintiff in a challenge to the proposed demolition of a two-story building at 125th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, and the development of the site as a shopping center. Bailey proposed legislation that would prevent the demolition. Early in 2008, Save Harlem, along with several building tenants (forming a group known as the Coalition to Save Harlem) sued, eventually settling for more than $1 million and gaining the right of the tenants to remain in the building.

Park51 was a planned Muslim community center located near the site of the World Trade Center. Timothy Brown, a former firefighter, sued to prevent construction of the community center so close to the site of the September 11 attacks. Bailey represented the community center on a pro bono basis, and in July 2011 the New York Supreme Court held that Park51 would be permitted to build its proposed center.

Trump SoHo New York is a $450 million hotel condominium. In February 2011, several prospective buyers of condominiums in the building, including French soccer star Olivier Dacourt, sued the developers in federal court, claiming that they had been tricked into buying the condos by the "deceptive" sales figures, and that the number of apartments sold at Trump Soho had been "fraudulently misrepresented." The plaintiffs were represented by Bailey. The suit was settled with plaintiffs recovering 90 per cent of their deposits. Several years later, the case was described as "a watershed case in the world of condo litigation ... [C]ondo attorneys said that developers are now far more reluctant to disclose sales information to buyers’ attorneys, for fear of legal repercussions if they turn out to be wrong.”

Following the financial crisis of 2007-08, Bailey used the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act of 1968 to relieve purchasers of Sky View Parc, a $1 billion condominium complex in Queens, of their contractual obligations to purchase, and obtained the largest residential condominium settlement in New York history. The condominium was ordered to refund 75 per cent of the $5 million in down payments to the buyers who backed out of the $50 million project. Bailey has been credited with being the first lawyer to use the law in this fashion, and he employed the same approach in a later case in an appeal of an adverse trial court decision to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Congress later closed the ILSA loophole with Public Law 113-167, which provides an exemption for condominiums from ILSA's registration requirements for all new construction after enactment.

In 2014 Bailey represented a condo board at 3 E. 78th St., to successfully halt a proposed NYU's expansion plan. NYU were seeking to connect their fine arts institute to a donated space in the condominium building via a breezeway. While NYU claims the bylaws allow alterations, the board argued it needed their approval. Bailey accused NYU of misrepresenting itself in the application and sought its rejection. Pointing to clear bylaws protecting the building's structure as it was designed by renowned American architect C.P.H. Gilbert. in 1899, Bailey successfully stopped the NYU expansion.

Bailey has been described as a controversial figure in NYC real estate.

On May 3, 2019, Bailey was suspended from practicing law for a four-month term. The suspension was imposed for undignified conduct (including telling a party suing Bailey's client that he "should commit suicide") and for threatening criminal charges to obtain an advantage in a civil matter.

Philanthropy

Bailey established the “Raymond 'Hap' Harrison” scholarship in 2008, named after his former high school track coach. Since then, he has given four-year academic awards to 17 students: 10 from New Milford and seven from New York City schools.

Books

In 2011, Bailey wrote Finding The Uncommon Deal: A Top New York Lawyer Explains How to Buy a Home for the Lowest Possible Price. The book gained Bailey the 2012 "First Time Author" award granted by the National Association of Real Estate Editors.

Bailey has written a children’s book, Home, which was named a Silver winner in the category Picture Book/Early Reader by Literary Classics.

Honors

Bailey was named one of New York’s "Most Powerful Real Estate Attorneys" by the Commercial Observer in 2015.

Bailey was named one of New York's Top Real Estate litigators by Chambers & Partners in 2021.

Bailey was also recognized in The Best Lawyers in America since 2015 in Real Estate Law New York, New York.