Jacquelyn D. Ruffin

Jacquelyn D. Ruffin practices business, real estate, and land use law.

Representative business law matters include forming corporations, partnerships and LLCs; guiding nonprofit clients through the nonprofit incorporation and the tax-exempt application process; drafting bylaws, operating agreements, shareholder agreements and other governing documents for business entities; negotiating and writing third-party contracts; and conceiving and implementing risk reduction strategies. She also serves as general counsel for numerous for- profit and nonprofit businesses.

Ms. Ruffin’s real estate practice includes preparing purchase and sale agreements; guiding clients through due diligence, including title matters, during the acquisition and disposition of real property; negotiating commercial leases and subleases; and drafting permanent and revocable easements. Furthermore, Ms. Ruffin counsels clients through land use transactions, such as special use permit applications, conditional use permit applications, and related CEQA analysis.

Additionally, Ms. Ruffin regularly advises public entity clients in business, real estate, and land use matters. She has represented school districts in numerous real estate transactions (both acquisition and disposition) varying in value from approximately $500,000 to $14 million. In this capacity, Ms. Ruffin assists the districts in complying with surplus property laws, public bidding processes, and state and local land use laws. She also serves as a public agency special counsel for complex transactions, including authoring, RFPs, RFQs, RFBs (e.g. $25-40 million transportation RFBs); overseeing $38.5 million school bond expenditure projects; preparing public bidding contracts (e.g., $30+ million construction project). Finally, Ms. Ruffin advises public entity clients in matters related to the Brown Act, Public Records Act, Constitutional issues and other laws pertaining to conflicts of interest, and statements of investment policy.

Prior to law school, she gained over a decade of experience in the nonprofit sector, including serving the AmeriCorp national service program in the Bay Area and working in the United Nations Development Fund for Women in West Africa and The Hague, Netherlands.

Ms. Ruffin became a partner in 2018.