DANIEL BORNSTEIN, ESQ.
Founding Attorney
Business-minded counsel for the rental housing industry.
Representing rental property owners, property managers, and real estate professionals throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. Daniel helps clients define their goals, evaluate their options, and make strategic legal decisions with an eye toward protecting and optimizing their real estate investments. His counsel considers not only what the law allows, but what makes sense for the property, the investment, and the client's broader objectives.
AT A GLANCE
The law provides the rules. Experience provides perspective. Judgment is knowing how to use both to solve problems, protect an investment, and move forward.
STRATEGY STARTS WITH
THE OBJECTIVE
Rental housing disputes rarely exist in a vacuum. A decision involving one tenant can affect the operation of a property, its future use, its value, and the owner's plans for the investment.
Daniel works with clients to identify the outcome they are trying to achieve and then evaluates the available paths for getting there. That means weighing leverage, timing, cost, risk, and the likelihood of success before deciding whether the right course is negotiation, litigation, a change in tenancy, or sometimes simply leaving well enough alone.
His practice encompasses the issues that arise throughout the life of a tenancy, including unlawful detainer actions, tenant buyout agreements, rent and eviction controls, rent board proceedings, and complex disputes involving rental property.
The objective is straightforward: solve the problem without creating a larger one. Legal action is a tool, not an end in itself, and the best strategy is often the one that accomplishes the client's goal with the least unnecessary conflict, expense, and disruption.
Daniel has also been called upon to serve as an expert witness in matters involving landlord-tenant law, property management, leasing, and related liability issues.
MAKING THE LAW UNDERSTANDABLE
Teaching is a natural extension of the practice.
Daniel believes housing providers make better decisions when they understand the rules governing their properties. Education has therefore become an important extension of his legal practice.
Through seminars, webinars, industry presentations, articles, and other educational programs, Daniel translates complicated rental housing laws into practical guidance. His focus is not simply on what changed, but why it matters, where the risks lie, and how owners and property managers can apply the law to real-world decisions.
He has a particular affinity for small rental property owners, who are often expected to navigate the same complex regulatory environment as sophisticated institutional operators without the same legal and administrative resources.
CONNECTED TO THE INDUSTRY
Daniel's work does not happen in isolation. He has long been actively involved with rental housing and real estate trade organizations, working alongside industry leaders, attorneys, property managers, and housing providers confronting many of the same issues his clients face.
That involvement complements his educational work and keeps him engaged in the broader conversations shaping rental housing policy and practice throughout the Bay Area.
— including prior service with its Legal, Liability, Judicial Procedures & Courts Policy Subcommittee
— Daniel previously served as a director
1988
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
B.A., magna cum laude
Phi Beta Kappa
James B. Angell Academic Excellence Scholar
1992
UC BERKELEY SCHOOL OF LAW
J.D.
S.K. Yee Academic Excellence Scholarship
Staff Editor, International Tax & Business Lawyer Journal
1997
SUNY ALBANY
M.A., Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy
Presidential Scholar
From California to Ukraine
Daniel's work has taken him well beyond the Bay Area. He served as a Visiting Professor of Law at Donetsk State University in Ukraine, where he lectured on real estate, municipal, and business law.
His time there also included research into the privatization of state property during a period of significant economic and institutional change. It offered a firsthand look at a society redefining the relationship between private ownership, government, and commerce.
It was a distinctive chapter in Daniel's career—one that placed familiar questions about property and ownership in an entirely different setting.
IN THE MEDIA
Making sense of complicated housing stories.
When rental housing issues reach the headlines, reporters often need more than the language of a statute or ordinance. They need to understand how the rules work in the real world.
Daniel has been called upon by Bay Area and national media to explain landlord-tenant disputes, new legislation, regulatory changes, and the consequences they can have for rental property owners.
BEYOND THE PRACTICE
Daniel is a proud father of five and lives in Oakland.
Away from the law, Daniel paints. His work draws inspiration from graffiti, humor, and what he describes as “urban primitive angst”—along with the simple pleasure of doodling and seeing where it leads.