Mr. Neal retired from the partnership in December 2006. He had been practicing law with Latham & Watkins in its Los Angeles office since 1974. He had been a partner since 1981, and was a member of the Finance Department and the Environment, Land & Resources Department. He has substantial experience in real estate transactions involving, and in securing regulatory approvals for, large scale developments.
Mr. Neal was deeply involved in a number of major projects in the City of Los Angeles, including Warner Center in Woodland Hills, the Hughes Aircraft Company Corporate Headquarters Building in Westchester, the Howard Hughes Center Project (including the sale thereof to Arden Realty, Inc.) and Catellus' West Bluffs Residential Project in Westchester, the California Plaza Project in Downtown, and the Playa Vista Project (including a 3,246-unit first phase residential subdivision and an approximately 3 million sq. ft. commercial subdivision for the Playa Vista Entertainment, Media and Technology District) near Playa Del Rey and the Marina.
Mr. Neal also had substantial experience involving other major land use projects in other cities and unincorporated areas of the County of Los Angeles, including the Malibu Colony Shopping Center in Malibu, a hotel in Hermosa Beach, a resort and convention hotel on the old Marineland site in Rancho Palos Verdes, two 80-unit residential subdivisions in Rancho Palos Verdes (one of which includes a golf course), a hotel on Catalina Island, a major addition to Hughes Aircraft Company's Research Laboratories in Malibu, a 42-inch crude oil pipeline from the Port of Long Beach to the Shell and ARCO refineries in Carson, Mobil Oil Corporation's M-70 Pipeline Replacement Project, the Pacific Pipeline Project, Tesoro del Valle (a 1,791-unit residential project near the City of Santa Clarita), the Chiquita Canyon Landfill expansion project, a large surface mining project near Palmdale and the Fairplex Village Project for the Los Angeles County Fair Association.
Mr. Neal has been involved in a number of significant civic, community and charitable organizations. He undertook significant pro bono projects for Church and Synagogue Associates (low income housing), the Starbright Foundation (improvement of the health and happiness of seriously ill children through a combination of entertainment, therapeutic, education, research, programming and broadcasting activities) and the Brentwood School. Mr. Neal served on the Board of Trustees of the Brentwood School for six years and, at the time of his retirement, served on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles County Housing Development Corporation.