Boston, MA The Boston Real Estate Times honored Nutter chair Paul Ayoub with its Lifetime Achievement Award for 2021 at its annual Excellence Awards ceremony.
Ayoub, chair of Nutter and a partner in the firm’s real estate department, represents clients in the financing, purchase, sale, development, and leasing of commercial real estate projects throughout the country. In addition, he advises numerous for-profit and nonprofit clients in a wide range of industries in the area of corporate governance.
“This honor is a recognition of Nutter and not just an individual,” said Ayoub. “Our firm was co-founded by Louis Brandeis prior to his service as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. His legacy of deep commitment to clients, to pro bono service and making a difference in our community serves as a common thread for all of us at Nutter. My efforts, like those of my colleagues, reflect the values of Nutter and are only possible because of the culture and support of the firm.”
Nutter is a top-tier, full-service law firm with 150 attorneys headquartered in the city where it has deep roots and a long-standing reputation for business savvy and pragmatism.
Nutter’s real estate group of 40 lawyers has a substantial national practice, representing clients on transactions involving properties located in almost every state. Locally, Nutter has represented seven of the 10 largest developers in Massachusetts.
A prominent leader and champion of equity, diversity, and inclusion in the legal and business communities, Ayoub is chair emeritus and a member of the executive committee of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce board of directors, and member and past president of the board of directors of the Real Estate Finance Association (REFA). During his terms as a leader of the Chamber and REFA boards, he was instrumental in increasing their programming and policy advocacy with respect to issues impacting women and people of color, and both boards were transformed to become meaningfully more diverse.
Ayoub also currently serves on the board of Incorporators of the Boston Local Development Corp. and served on the Mayor’s Reopening Advisory Board for the City of Boston during the peak of COVID-19.
As an initial Steering Committee member of Massachusetts’ Small Business Strong (SBS) initiative, Ayoub supported the launch and development of this nonprofit created to assist minority- and women-owned small businesses, without cost, in navigating the pandemic’s devasting impact, and continues to serve in this capacity as SBS passes its one-year anniversary having served more than 1,700 companies. SBS is credited with preserving an estimated 5,100 jobs statewide. In addition to his work on the SBS Steering Committee, Ayoub created a consortium of several Boston law firms to provide pro bono services to SBS clients, struggling business owners who had been left with nowhere else to turn after feeling the effects of the pandemic.
In addition to his regional civic involvement, Ayoub is the chair of the national board of directors of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and former chair of the ALSAC board of directors, the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude. Ayoub also serves as a co-chair of the International WELL Building Institute’s (IWBI) 2021 Health Equity Advisory along with a select group of leading global real estate industry professionals, working to identify, codify, and scale strategies to address health inequities in buildings, businesses, and communities around the world. For the past several years, Ayoub has been recognized by Best Lawyers in America and Chambers USA as a leading U.S. real estate attorney. He also was selected as one of the Boston Business Journal’s “2020 Power 50 – Extraordinary Year Extraordinary People.”
