Condo Media - December 2014 - 27

a little more authoritarian and more
inclined to litigate an issue. Today,
when a board asks her to file suit to
resolve an issue, she is more likely to
encourage them to seek a commonsense solution and to "bend a little" if
possible to resolve the dispute. "That's
going to be better than taking a hard
line that ends up with everyone in the
community being polarized."
Learning. "Never assume you know
all the answers. There are more ways to
think about questions and more ways
to resolve conflicts than you could ever
imagine." Shapiro says her experience
as a condominium attorney has taught
her as much about psychology as about
the law. It's the "common-sense experience" about how to resolve issues
that she thinks has been most valuable
to her and her clients.
Stephen Marcus, Esq.,
Partner, Marcus, Errico,
Emmer & Brooks, P.C.
The value of pragmatism. Marcus learned
one of his most important lessons early in
his career when a developer told him,
"The problem with attorneys is, they
tell you what you can't do. We need
attorneys who will tell us what we can
do." The developer wasn't talking
specifically about condominium law,
but the advice stuck with Marcus and
made him focus as much on crafting
solutions to problems as on identifying them.
The limits of litigation. Experience
has taught Marcus "what works and
what doesn't, what's practical and
humane. I've learned that legal solutions aren't always the best ones." That
lesson came in a now oft-cited case
involving elderly condominium owners
unable to care for themselves. The association had filed a suit seeking to remove the owners because their actions
(leaving their stove unattended) were
creating a safety risk for other residents. Instead, the judge ordered them

to lock their stove and hire a cook to
prepare their meals. "That got me away
from the idea that the first thing you
do is sue," Marcus says. It also taught
him that there has to be room for compassion in resolving disputes.
Picking your fights. Every court case
teaches a lesson, Marcus says, and
one of those lessons for him has been
that it's costly for an association to be
the first to litigate an unresolved legal
question. "There's no way to predict
the outcome," he notes. That's why he
advises clients to pick their battles carefully and to consider the costs. "You
can lose these battles as easily as you
win," he says. If an association spends
$200,000 and loses, owners aren't
going to be ecstatic. But if they spend
$200,000 and win, owners aren't going
to be all that excited either.
Hugh Shaffer, PCAM,
On-site Manager at
Harbor Towers in
downtown Boston
Different strokes.
Communities differ,
so the advice managers offer and the strategies they apply
must differ as well. "I may have three
properties dealing with the same issue at the same time and recommend
completely different approaches to all
of them," Shaffer says.
The differences would be based
both on the needs of the communities and on the expectations of their
boards. "What's important to one
board may not be as important to
another. You have to understand the
expectations of board members in
order to be successful in their eyes.
That's something managers need to
understand, Shaffer says, "but I'm not
sure it's something you can learn."
The importance of attitude. "Condominium management is unique,"
Shaffer says, and it takes a certain
mindset to succeed at it. "You're
constantly being redirected and challenged in different ways. If you need

to write a to-do list at the beginning
of the day and check off everything
on it by day's end, you might as well
just jump off a bridge now, because
it's never going to happen." His own
mindset changed early on, and the
change probably counts as his most
important lesson.
"I've always been something of an
optimist," he says, but at this point,
he was feeling "as if I couldn't do
anything right. I had almost decided
I couldn't do this job. I'm not sure
what changed, but internally, I learned
that I am my own motivator. I'm not
being driven by someone outside - I
control who I am and how I react."
With that shift in his mindset, Shaffer says, he could concentrate on the
rewarding aspects of the job. "You
can't wake up every day asking, 'How
am I going to trudge through it?'"
Shaffer says. "You have to wake up
wondering, 'How am I going to make
a difference.'"
C. Jerry Ragosa, President of
The Niles Co. Inc. AMO
Listening to clients. "Even if you've
been in this business a long time, you
don't have all the answers. It's important to listen to clients and prospective
clients. You can always learn something
new from them."
Dealing with perceptions. "Clients'
perceptions are their reality." Ragosa
says this may be one of the most important lessons he's learned. Boards
and owners don't necessarily see what
managers see, he explains. "Managers can picture the pipes and wiring
behind the sheetrock; owners see
only the sheetrock. They don't know
what's going on behind it. Even if the
association is running smoothly, unless
we tell them what we're doing, they
won't necessarily believe it's being
managed well." CM
Nena Groskind is president of eContentplus, providing editorial content for
websites, print and electronic newsletters,
and magazines.
Condo Media * December 2014

Condo Media - December 2014

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