Mary G. Murphy is the co-chair of Gibson Dunn’s Land Use Practice Group and a member of Real Estate Practice Group and Sports Law Group. She also is a member of the Firm’s Diversity Committee.  Ms. Murphy represents a wide variety of developers and investors in real estate transactions and land use issues, with particular experience in public private partnerships and historic rehabilitation projects.

Ms. Murphy has strong development experience within San Francisco and around the Bay Area, including extensive experience in significant and historic public/private development deals.  Ms. Murphy’s representations include:

• Serving as lead counsel to the Oakland Athletics Major League Baseball team in its efforts to develop a new stadium and ancillary development in Oakland, California at Howard Terminal, owned by the Port of Oakland.  The project includes retail, hotel, residential and other uses, in addition to the stadium.  The project will require infrastructure development as well as vertical development of the stadium and related buildings, and will entail development agreements, ground leases and infrastructure financing issues, among others.  Gibson Dunn is advising on matters including a multi-jurisdictional entitlements process and the successful passage, in September 2018, of new state legislation providing for expedited judicial review under the California Environmental Quality Act and a second piece of state legislation pertaining to State Lands public trust matters.
• Represented the Golden State Warriors in their successful entitlement of a new event center and mixed use development in the Mission Bay area of San Francisco, including successfully defending the entitlements and CEQA analysis pursuant to AB 900, an expedited judicial review process for CEQA cases and recently successfully entitled a further development of a hotel at the site.
• Represented Treasure Island Community Developers in its successful negotiations to redevelop Treasure Island, a former naval base in the San Francisco Bay.  The Treasure Island project is a complex, multi-year, multi-phase development project involving federal, state and local components and with the Gibson Dunn team, is assisting in the implementation of the project.
• Represented Build, Inc. in the successful entitlement of a 1575 unit mixed-use development project with over 15 acres of public use space in the India Basin area of San Francisco.
• Lead counsel in the successful entitlement for the redevelopment of the 312 acre Parkmerced residential development in San Francisco.
• Represented Related Company in its 9 million square foot development in Santa Clara, including negotiating a development agreement and related documents and with the Gibson Dunn team is assisting in implementing the project.
• Represented Cedar Fair, the owner of the Great American Theme Park in Santa Clara in the acquisition of its property.
• Representing Interfaith Chapel at the Presidio in its negotiations for a ground lease and a related development project at the Presidio.
• Represented Sportsbasement in its negotiations pertaining to its lease in the Presidio.
• Represented Fortress Investment Group in its efforts to redevelop the Oakland Coliseum City site as a home for the Oakland Raiders.
• Counsel to URW, formerly Westfield America, the developer of the $420 million public/private retail and entertainment complex, the Westfield San Francisco Centre, an urban 1-million-square-foot retail and entertainment complex, and is representing Westfield in its efforts to redevelop a portion of the Centre also assisted Westfield in its acquisition of the 350,000-square foot SONY Metreon, an urban dining, gaming, music, exhibition, shopping, and movie entertainment complex, located in downtown San Francisco.
• Represented developers in the public/private partnership with the Port of San Francisco, the rehabilitation of Piers 1 ½, 3 and 5, an historic waterfront property, and was lead counsel to the developers of the San Francisco Ferry Building, a national historic landmark.  In 2003, this project was named “Deal of the Year” by the San Francisco Business Times. Both waterfront projects were federal historic tax credit projects.
• Other important historic building rehabilitations in which Ms. Murphy was legal counsel include the original Bank of Italy Building (One Powell Street), the old San Francisco Chronicle Building (690 Market Street, San Francisco’s first skyscraper), the Mutual Bank Building (700 Market Street), the Call Building (74 New Montgomery), and the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Building (140 New Montgomery), all located in downtown San Francisco.

Appointed by both Presidents Clinton and Bush, Ms. Murphy served two terms on the Presidio Trust Board, a United States Government Corporation established by Congress in 1996.  She is the co-chair of the Bay Area Council Housing Committee, as well as a member of the Board of Directors and sits on the Executive Committee of the Committee on JOBS.  She  recently concluded her role on the Board of Trustees of San Francisco Planning & Urban Research, is a former board member of the San Francisco Boys & Girls Club, Hamlin School for Girls, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the Drew School in San Francisco.  She is also a former San Francisco City Commissioner, having served on the San Francisco Board of Appeals, which hears, among other things, appeals from the Planning Commission and Zoning Administrator.

Ms. Murphy has received numerous local, state, and national honors, including:

• Selected as a 2021 Leading Lawyer for Real estate and construction – Land Use/Zoning by The Legal 500(U.S.).
• Named by Expert Guides to its 2021 Guide to the World’s Leading Women in Business Law.
• Consistently included in Chambers & Partners’ USA Leading Lawyers for Business Guide for California – Real Estate: Zoning/Land Use.
• 2017 California Lawyer of the Year by the Daily Journal for her work leading the Golden State Warriors Mixed-used and Event Center Development legal team.
• Named to the list of “100 Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business” by the San Francisco Business Times several times, and was elevated in 2017 to their “Forever Influential” status.
• Top 100 Lawyers in the State of California in 2011 and 2012 by the Daily Journal and the Recorder, respectively.
• California Lawyer of the Year by California Lawyer magazine in 2007.
• Awarded the Euromoney LMG Americas Women in Business award in Real Estate.
• Consistently named a Best Lawyer in Real Estate by Best Lawyers in America.

Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Ms. Murphy was a partner at a San Francisco firm, as well as a law clerk for Judges Cecil F. Poole and James R. Browning of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Ms. Murphy received her law degree from Harvard University, cum laude, in 1986.  She was a Rhodes Scholar and graduated from Oxford University with an Honours B.A. in 1983.  She received her B.A., cum laude with distinction, from Yale University in 1981.​