Jim Walden, a nationally recognized litigator, has been retained by the Cobble Hill Association to help the community explore legal options regarding the proposed Fortis development on the former LICH Campus. Walden has extensive experience working on behalf of community and preservation groups over land-use disputes. Among his other matters, Walden successfully challenged of the Department of Corrections’ plan to double the capacity of the Brooklyn House of Detention. He also helped lead a trial-court ruling against a massive expansion plan in Greenwich Village (a verdict later overturned on appeal). In another matter, after successfully suing over the illegal conversion of parkland in Brooklyn Bridge Park, he subsequently negotiated a deal to add parkland to the site, while permitting a local theater group to develop part of the parcel. Walden was also then-Councilmember Letitia James’ choice to help her and community groups evaluate legal options when facing expansion of a homeless intake center at Bedford-Atlantic Armory. Walden brought all this litigation and negotiation experience to bear for CHA when SUNY sought to illegally close LICH. His work there resulted in a settlement resetting the RFP process to try to find a hospital operator. Before representing the CHA and other community groups, he was then-Public Advocate Bill de Blasio’s “go to” lawyer in that matter, and once elected, Mayor de Blasio aptly described Jim’s special skills: “If there is magic in the law, Jim Walden has found it because we sometimes seemed out of options. And Jim Walden would typically burst into the room and come up with a new option. And [those options] had the extraordinary tendency to work.”

Jim was the unanimous choice of the Cobble Hill Association’s Executive Board.