Paul Windust

Mr. Windust practices out of our East Bay office and has over eight years of experience in both commercial and residential real estate law, business management and financial management as well as contract law, financial services, creditor's rights and bankruptcy. He has handled complex business matters and resolved insurance claims from natural disasters. Previous to joining Berding & Weil, Mr. Windust represented and advised insurance companies, financial institutions and Fortune 500 companies in class action, ERISA, bad faith, insurance coverage, regulatory, real estate and unfair business practices litigation in state and federal courts. Representative matters Paul has handled include: Represented a Fortune 500 company's long term business plan required disposal of its West Coast manufacturing site which it had leased from a building owner. A sublessee claimed it had renewal rights which were contained in the master lease. We filed a successful demurrer which disposed of the majority of the claims and later obtained summary judgment based on a written brief defeating the sublessee's claimed renewal rights. We also obtained a significant award for litigation fees and costs. Defended a Fortune 500 company tenant in a breach of lease action in which the landlord claimed default rent and early possession of the premises. We successfully negotiated a favorable buyout of the lease by leveraging the landlord's financial position and using legal argument to defeats summary judgment. Negotiated a favorable resolution to a dispute between a landlord and its cable company tenant, our client. The cable company tenant made unapproved alterations to the premises. The landlord attempted to declare the lease in default with the objective of negotiating a new lease with more favorable lease terms and rental structure. Recovered a settlement of over $500,000 for a national modular building distributor by prosecuting both breach of contract and construction defect claims. The end user of the modular buildings refused to perform on the contract because of alleged water intrusion and construction delays. We enforced the contract terms, took an assignment of its rights, and prosecuted defect claims to a successful settlement.