Mary Murphy

Mary G. Murphy is a partner in the San Francisco office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and a member of the firm's Real Estate Practice Group. She also is a member of the Firm's Executive Committee and Gibson Dunn's Diversity Task Force. Ms. Murphy represents a wide variety of developers and investors in real estate transactions and land use issues, with particular experience in historic preservation and tax credits for historic rehabilitation projects. Ms. Murphy is one of the most influential land use attorneys in San Francisco and has been a major player in revitalizing the development of San Francisco. She is a pre-eminent figure in the City for significant and historic public/private development deals. Ms. Murphy currently represents Treasure Island Community Developers in its negotiations to redevelop Treasure Island, a former naval base in the San Francisco Bay. Ms. Murphy also currently represents Lucasfilm in the most recent phase of their Master Plan development in Marin County. She is legal counsel to Westfield America, the developer of the $420 million public/private retail and entertainment complex, the Westfield San Francisco Centre, an urban 1-million-square-foot retail and entertainment complex, and also assisted Westfield in its acquisition of the 350,000-square foot SONY Metreon, an urban dining, gaming, music, exhibition, shopping, and movie entertainment complex, located in downtown San Francisco. Ms. Murphy is also legal counsel to the developers in the public/private partnership with the Port of San Francisco, in the rehabilitation of Piers 1 ½, 3 and 5, historic waterfront property located on the Embarcadero of San Francisco's east side. The recent completion of the restoration of these Piers caps off the revitalization of some of the most important waterfront property in San Francisco. Appointed by both Presidents Clinton and Bush, Ms. Murphy served two terms on the Presidio Trust Board, a United States Government Corporation established by Congress in 1996. As a principal representing the Presidio Trust, Ms. Murphy represented the Trust in the two largest transactions it had ever undertaken – the landmark $100 million remediation agreement among the Trust, the Department of the Army and the Department of the Interior, and a 90-year ground lease and development agreement with Lucasfilm to build a digital entertainment facility and office complex in the Presidio National Park, which was also named “Deal of the Year” by the San Francisco Business Times in 2002. She sits on the Board of Trustees of the Drew School in San Francisco, the San Francisco Boys and Girls Club, and San Francisco Planning & Urban Research. She is a former board member of the Hamlin School for girls. Prior to joining Gibson Dunn, Ms. Murphy had practiced with Farella, Braun + Martel since 1987, as a partner since 1998. She was a law clerk for Judges Cecil F. Poole and James R. Browning of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Ms. Murphy received her law degree from Harvard University, cum laude, in 1986. She was a Rhodes Scholar and graduated from Oxford University with an Honours B.A. in 1983. She received her B.A., cum laude with distinction, from Yale University in 1981.