News

Pacific Collegiate School Adds Berliner Cohen Attorney to Board of Directors

March 04, 2009

The Pacific Collegiate School in Santa Cruz has named Thomas Morell, Berliner Cohen attorney and long-time Santa Cruz resident, to its Board of Directors and as the chair of its Facilities Committee.  PCS is an advanced-course school regularly identified as America’s best charter school by national news magazines.  PCS is looking to the Facilities Committee to develop plans for a new school facility suitable for the long-term needs of the school and to execute upon those plans in the next two years.

The mission of PCS is to provide exemplary, standards based college preparatory and fine arts education for public middle and high school students of Santa Cruz County and bordering areas.  Its vision is to offer any student the same quality of education offered by the most academically distinguished schools in California.

Mr. Morell brings his experience as a commercial real estate attorney to his responsibilities on the Board and as committee chair.  His varied real estate practice includes office, retail, and industrial leasing, purchase and sale agreements, real estate secured lending, LLC, joint venture and co-tenancy agreements, and construction contracts.  In his private practice, he has also previously represented schools as borrowers in their acquisition and renovation of school facilities using nonprofit corporation bond financing.

Berliner Cohen is one of the largest and oldest law firms in San Jose serving the business and regulatory needs of private business and public agencies.  For 40 years, the Firm has developed the special expertise required by a diverse client base consisting of nationally recognized business interests and a number of Silicon Valley’s largest national and multinational corporations, new ventures, leading real estate developers and brokerages, cutting-edge technology companies, healthcare and other service providers, banking and financial institutions, municipalities, public agencies and individuals.  Berliner Cohen also meets the growing demands of the San Joaquin Valley with its expanding office in Merced.