Michael B. Kent is a Partner at McLaughlin & Stern with more than five decades of experience counseling individuals and businesses across a diverse range of legal matters. His practice focuses on commercial and residential real estate, corporate and business counseling, commercial litigation, and entertainment law.

Michael was a founding partner of Kent, Beatty & Gordon LLP (which recently joined McLaughlin & Stern), which evolved from the law practice he established in 1981. Throughout his career, he has represented clients in complex and high-profile matters, including proceedings before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, and in major civil and criminal court proceedings and sensitive internal investigations involving professional sports teams and athletes.

Michael has extensive experience in commercial and high-end residential real estate matters, including conveyances, leasing and financing. He has written and lectured on real estate law and commercial leasing, with particular emphasis on the hospitality industry. He has also served as a guest lecturer at the Institute of Culinary Education on the legal and practical aspects of restaurant leasing and has appeared multiple times as a panelist on The Stoler Report discussing developments in the New York real estate market.

Michael’s entertainment practice has included representing musicians, composers, managers, producers and other entertainment industry professionals, including Grammy Award and Academy Award recipients. His work also has included negotiating television production development agreements and related matters.

Michael previously served for more than a decade as Village Justice of Thomaston in Great Neck, New York. He has also served as an adjunct professor of litigation studies at Long Island University and Mercy College, and on the Advisory Board of Directors of Customers Bancorp.

Michael is admitted to practice in New York and the District of Columbia, as well as before the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He is a member of the New York State Magistrates Association, the New York State Bar Association and the New York City Bar Association.