Mary G. Murphy is the Partner-in-Charge of the San Francisco office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and a member of the firm's Real Estate Practice Group. She also is a member of the Firm's Executive Committee, Management Committee, and Gibson Dunn's Diversity Task Force. Ms. Murphy represents a wide variety of developers and investors in real estate transactions and land use issues, with particular experience in historic preservation and tax credits for historic rehabilitation projects.
Ms. Murphy is one of the most influential land use attorneys in San Francisco and has been a major player in revitalizing the development of San Francisco. She is a pre-eminent figure in the City for significant and historic public/private development deals. Ms. Murphy currently represents Treasure Island Community Developers in its negotiations to redevelop Treasure Island, a former naval base in the San Francisco Bay. She is also currently lead counsel to two of the largest proposed sustainable infill projects in the Bay Area, the redevelopment of 700 acres in Brisbane by Universal Paragon Corporation and the 312-acre Parkmerced Complex by Stellar Management. Ms. Murphy also currently represents Lucasfilm in the most recent phase of their Master Plan development in Marin County. She is legal counsel to 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 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.
Ms. Murphy is also legal counsel to the developers in the public/private partnership with the Port of San Francisco, in the rehabilitation of Piers 1 ½, 3 and 5, historic waterfront property located on the Embarcadero of San Francisco's east side. The recent completion of the restoration of these Piers caps off the revitalization of some of the most important waterfront property in San Francisco. San Francisco's historic waterfront revitalization began with the restoration of the San Francisco Ferry Building, built in 1898 and recently revitalized with office and retail offerings, another project in which Ms. Murphy was the lead counsel to the developers. 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 that rehabilitated important landmarked buildings, involved complicated multijurisdictional entitlement issues, and are amongst the most important public/private projects in San Francisco, anchoring the east side of the City. Other important historic building rehabilitations in which she is 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 (138 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. As a principal representing the Presidio Trust, Ms. Murphy represented the Trust in the two largest transactions it had ever undertaken – the landmark $100 million remediation agreement among the Trust, the Department of the Army and the Department of the Interior, and a 90-year ground lease and development agreement with Lucasfilm to build a digital entertainment facility and office complex in the Presidio National Park, which was also named “Deal of the Year” by the San Francisco Business Times in 2002.
Ms. Murphy was named to the list of “100 Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business” by the San Francisco Business Times several times, and was named a California Lawyer of the Year by California Lawyer magazine in 2007. Ms. Murphy has also been included in Chambers & Partners' USA Leading Lawyers for Business Guide as first-tier real estate attorney, several times. She sits on the Board of Trustees of the Drew School in San Francisco, the San Francisco Boys and Girls Club, and San Francisco Planning & Urban Research. She is a former board member of the Hamlin School for girls.
Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Ms. Murphy had practiced with Farella, Braun + Martel since 1987, as a partner since 1998. She was 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.