In five decades of private practice at several national and international law firms, Joe has been at the forefront of many major innovations and reforms in the real estate finance industry and has counselled participants in the primary, secondary and capital markets for property finance through downturns and subsequent recoveries in seven prior market cycles each with its unique market transitions and evolving regulatory regimes. His range of experience and recognized expertise in real estate finance encompasses mortgage originations and servicing, workouts, mortgage securitization, environmental risk management, and capital market and regulatory issues.

He served as Co-Chair of the Legal Section of the original ASTM Environmental Site Assessment Sub-Committee in its development of the original ESA Phase 1. In 1991, he testified before US House and Senate Committees on behalf of the American Bar Association regarding the CERCLA Secured Creditor Exemption and wrote extensively on Phase 1. Joe now serves as the Legal and Regulatory Liaison on an ASTM Subcommittee's Task Group in its development of a Property Resilience Assessment Standard to assess physical risk and resilience of commercial property to climate and natural hazards.

As a member of the MBA, Joe served on the original Environmental and Capital Markets Committees and for many years was a member of the Commercial Board of Governors as well as the Board of Directors (1998-99) and was inducted into the Mortgage Bankers Legion (2002). He worked closely with the Commercial Real Estate Finance Counsel (CREFC) LIBOR working group in respect of LIBOR Transition. Joe serves as chair of the Real Estate Roundtable’s LIBOR Working Group, which made the initial recommendations for safe harbor modifications to the IRS sales/exchange rules, resulting in the IRS issuing a final regulation confirming that replacement of LIBOR would not be treated as a taxable exchange of property under the Tax Code as well as chair of its working group that obtained the statutory override of the federal banking regulators’ ill-conceived HVCRE Rule.

He has received the MBA Distinguished Service Award (1998), the CREFC Founders Award (2001) and the CREFC Leadership Award for his service as President (1998-1999) and is widely recognized as a leading real estate finance practitioner in national and international legal directories. In 2013, Joe was one of only two lawyers names as the “most influential people in real estate” amongst 30 executives recognized in Commercial Property Executives as central to driving growth and innovation in the commercial real estate recovery after the Global Financial Crisis; and in 2019, received Who’s Who Legal’s “Lifetime Achievement Award”, after seven years being named its global “Real Estate Lawyer of the Year”.

Joe frequently publishes and speaks on commercial real estate finance topics and is the recipient of several "Best Article" awards from legal and industry publications. He served as Contributing Editor of Lexology's annual Getting the Deal Through - Real Estate 2013 to 2020. Joe was one of the original founders of CREFC as well as the founder and publisher of its CRE Finance World, and continues to serve as Publisher for CREFC's newest publication, CRE and Multifamily Finance in the Spotlight. Joe has served for several years as the co-chair of the annual “CMBS & The Real Estate Lawyer” program for the Practising Law Institute.

Joe is a Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, the American College of Mortgage Attorneys, and the Anglo American Real Property Institute (serving as Chair in 2015).