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Three CGS3 Partners Honored as Among San Diego’s Best Attorneys
Tom Crosbie, Sean Southard and Joe von Meier Profiled in Annual Tribute to Local Lawyers
SAN DIEGO (March 23, 2026) – Continuing to garner recognition, Crosbie Gliner Schiffman Southard & Swanson (CGS3) partners Tom Crosbie, Sean Southard and Joe von Meier have been named among San Diego’s Best Attorneys for 2026 by SD Metro, a longtime San Diego business publication.
The annual recognition highlights leading attorneys across San Diego County who are making a significant impact in their fields. This year’s honorees are profiled in the March edition of SD Metro, a regional business magazine with a 38-year history of covering the people and companies shaping San Diego’s economy.
Crosbie, Southard and von Meier are key members of CGS3’s legal team, each bringing deep experience in complex commercial real estate transactions and corporate matters, and playing an integral role in advising clients on high-value deals and strategic business initiatives.
A CGS3 founding partner, Tom Crosbie has many years of experience in a broad variety of commercial real estate areas, including acquisitions and dispositions, financing, leasing and construction in connection with commercial, residential, industrial, retail and mixed-use projects for local, regional and national real estate developers and investors. He also has vast expertise in all aspects of ground-up development and redevelopment projects, including drafting and negotiating development agreements, CC&Rs, REAs, construction contracts and design contracts for commercial, industrial, multi-family residential and mixed-use projects. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University and a J.D. from Northwestern University.
Sean Southard is also a CGS3 founding partner and has been instrumental in the firm’s ongoing growth, helping to establish it as a leader among commercial real estate law firms. A true leasing specialist, he is master at closing high-velocity and high-profile deals – earning him the trust and confidence of some of the country’s most recognizable clients. He has successfully completed major leasing transactions totaling more than 20 million square feet of space across all sectors of commercial real estate, including retail, life science, industrial and office and also has extensive experience in the negotiation and documentation of purchase and sale transactions, sale-lease back transactions, ground lease transactions, development agreements, property management agreements and all other types of agreements relating to the use and development of real property. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of San Diego and a J.D. from Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Joe von Meier joined CGS3 in 2017 and was promoted to partner in 2019. He began his career at Chicago’s Burke, Warren, MacKay & Serritella, where he advanced to equity partner before relocating to California. Known for blending sharp business insight with strategic legal counsel, Joe represents leading developers, investors, and construction firms in high-profile, complex real estate transactions. His practice spans construction and development across sectors including student housing, multifamily, luxury residential, retail, and mixed-use projects. He knows all aspects of the development process, from entity formation and capitalization, financing and preconstruction services, to leasing and disposition, and his expertise extends to the negotiation and drafting of sophisticated construction contracts and architecture/engineering agreements on behalf of both owners and general contractors. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Michigan and J.D. cum laude from University of Wisconsin Law School.
About Crosbie Gliner Schiffman Southard & Swanson LLP (CGS3)
CGS3 is a recognized leader among a new generation of commercial real estate law firms with practice areas covering the entire commercial real estate life cycle, including finance, acquisition/disposition, entity formation, tax, construction & development, land use, leasing, distressed asset workouts and dispute resolution. Earning a reputation as one of California’s leading commercial real estate law firms, CGS3 recruits some of the state’s top real estate attorneys from both large corporate firms and senior in-house positions. For more information, visit http://www.cgs3.com.