John C. Schnaufer

Adjunct Professor John C. Schnaufer started teaching real estate litigation in an LLM program as an adjunct professor at Haub Law in 2010. Since 2016, he has taught Commercial Real Estate Transactions.

Prof. Schnaufer began his career as a real estate associate at Milbank, Tweed, and Hadley & McCloy. During his time there, he worked on sophisticated real estate transactions for a major commercial bank and other corporate clients. His experience on Wall Street enabled him to be lead counsel for a world renowned educational corporation in its acquisition of air rights over a heavily traveled thoroughfare in New York City. In the early 1970s, he became a member of Doran, Colleran, O’Hara, Pollio & Dunne, P.C., in Garden City, N.Y., then one of the larger firms in Nassau County. In 1975, Prof. Schnaufer started his own practice, where he represented real estate developers on Long Island, and from a business and legal standpoint transformed a summer rental beach community of 41 families into a permanent cooperative housing corporation.

In 1994, Prof. Schnaufer joined with John W. Dean, a former partner at Milbank, to start the firm Dean & Schnaufer. After John Dean’s retirement in 2002, Prof. Schnaufer teamed up with Peter Metis to form Schnaufer & Metis, LLP. He is an experienced litigator and has successfully tried cases in the federal district court, the New York State Supreme Court, and before various state and city agencies. He has also argued appeals before the Court of Appeals, the Appellate Division and the Appellate Term. He is a past President of Wiltwyck Golf Club and his former co-operative corporation. As of September 1, 2015, Prof. Schnaufer practices in Hartsdale, N.Y., under the firm John C. Schnaufer, Esq., LLC.

• BA, Colorado College
• LLB, Brooklyn Law School