Jennifer Phillips Smith

Practice Areas

Ms. Smith counsels clients on complex redevelopment, land use, and regulatory matters. She represents clients seeking site plan approval and variances from numerous planning and zoning boards in connection with mixed use, multi-family residential, restaurant, retail, office, financial, medical, and educational projects. She also represents clients in redevelopment areas and has experience drafting and reviewing redevelopment documents, including redevelopment agreements, redevelopment plans, financial agreements (PILOTs), and special assessment agreements. Ms. Smith has extensive experience in land use litigation, including challenges involving municipal land use approvals and affordable housing matters. She has also appeared before the Office of Administrative Law concerning challenges to state agency decisions.

Ms. Smith represents liquor licensees and has counseled clients on a wide variety of issues, including required corporate disclosures for complex corporate structures, disclosure of past misconduct, and local ordinance restrictions on hours of operation and locations of licensed establishments. She also represents hotels and clubs seeking the issuance of new plenary retail consumption licenses. In addition, Ms. Smith provides counsel on regulatory compliance, enforcement actions, minor employment permits, special event permits, BYOB, and concessionaire permits.

Focus Areas:

Real Estate Development and Redevelopment: The components of Ms. Smith’s practice include:

—Applications for development, typically representing applicants to planning and zoning boards and commissions, as well as to other municipal, county, and state agencies, in connection with restaurant, retail, hospital, residential, industrial, and mixed use projects and involving a wide range of issues, such as zone changes, environmental constraints, highway access, sewer/water connection, and other permitting and municipal law issues.

—Redevelopment, including assisting clients in securing or opposing redevelopment designations, drafting redevelopment plans, negotiating redevelopment agreements, representing clients in connection with designations as redeveloper, and negotiating financial agreements for payments-in-lieu of taxes.

—Litigation arising from applications for development, zoning disputes, redevelopment matters, and commercial lease disputes, as well as enforcement proceedings concerning code violations, including all aspects of litigation, from drafting pleadings and developing case strategy to conducting discovery and presenting oral argument at motion hearings and at trial.

—Due diligence investigations, typically for a purchaser or lender, concerning the permitting and approvals status of property to be acquired or financed to determine the validity and effect of development approvals, as well as the feasibility of future expansion.

Liquor Licensing and Alcoholic Beverage Control: Ms. Smith also practices in the area of liquor licensing and alcoholic beverage control, representing current or prospective licensees in obtaining liquor licenses or permits for on-premises or off-premises consumption. She represents buyers and sellers of licenses and permits, as well as licensees subject to enforcement proceedings; provides counseling concerning alcoholic beverage matters, such as BYOB, background checks, and purchase/sale agreements, as well as compliance and reporting issues; assists with renewals and changes in corporate structure; represents clients in objections to license issuance or transfer and subsequent appeal proceedings; represents clients seeking the issuance of club and hotel licenses; and represents clients seeking changes to the alcoholic beverage laws. Ms. Smith also has experience in special concessionaire permits and the associated agreements with governmental entities.

Honors & Awards

In addition to Chambers USA, she was featured on the ROI-NJ “Influencers Power List: Real Estate” for 2021 and the NJBIZ “Power 100” and “Law Power 50” lists for 2020 and 2021, and she was named a 2018 New Jersey Law Journal “New Leader of the Bar.”