I am delighted to report that my friend and colleague, Joel Reck, will receive the Real Estate Bar Association's highest honor, the Richard B. Johnson Award.
It will be my pleasure to present the award to Joel at REBA's Annual Meeting & Conference lunch on October 29th at the Best Western Royal Plaza Hotel in Marlborough.
A retired partner from Brown Rudnick LLP, Reck chaired the firm's real estate practice group. His practice consisted of structuring, managing and closing commercial real estate transactions throughout the United States and has included several of the largest development projects and leases in the Greater Boston area.
Reck now acts as a mediator and arbitrator. He has mediated real estate and commercial disputes, as well as personal injury and professional malpractice matters. Many of those mediations have involved multiple parties. Reck is one of REBA Dispute Resolution's most sought-after mediators and enjoys an enviable success rate.
Reck was listed in the 2011 edition of The Best Lawyers in America in the specialties of Alternative Dispute Resolution and Real Estate Law and as one of the "Nation's Top 10 Real Estate Lawyers" published by the United States Lawyer Rankings guide. He was also named as a leading individual in real estate law in Massachusetts by Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business. He has served as chair of the Real Estate Section and as president of the Boston Bar Association. He also served as president of the Boston Bar Foundation and on the governing boards of the Massachusetts Bar Association, the Real Estate Bar Association, the American Bar Association and Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education. He is a member of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and its Leasing Committee and chair of the Boston Harbor Island Alliance, as well as former chair and board member of many other non-profit and charitable organizations.
He lives with his wife Rachel in Wayland. He sails out of Southport, Maine on his sloop, "The Reckreation."

Please join me in congratulating Reck on this well-deserved honor.

Judge Rudolph Kass is a retired associate justice of the Massachusetts Appeals Court, Boston, Mass.