About

Derek Chantler

Derek Chantler, principal and partner of Chantler Law Offices, has spent his career providing representation to individual clients and municipalities in the San Francisco Bay Area in real estate, estate planning and general litigation matters.

Since his admission to the Bar in 2012, Derek’s practice has emphasized real estate dispute resolution, focusing on landlord-tenant disputes. As one of the few attorneys who consciously chooses to accept representation of landlords and tenants alike, Derek has developed a holistic, balanced perspective that has led to successful outcomes for each of his clients, with an eye to minimizing displacement while also protecting the rights of property owners.

For the past five years, Derek’s practice has also emphasized performing hearing examiner services for a variety of jurisdictions in the Bay Area. For each city, Derek adjudicates petitions filed by members of the public. In that quasi-judicial capacity, Derek conducts evidentiary hearings and issues substantive, binding legal decisions resolving disputes about the rights and responsibilities that landlords, tenants and their agents have under local housing laws. For East Palo Alto, Derek has also played a key role in developing administrative regulations for the City’s housing laws. In addition to these jurisdictions Derek also serves as a Mediator for the City of Hayward’s Virtual mediation program, implemented to address the issues arising during the COVID-19 crisis.

In his estate planning practice, Derek has represented individuals, including high net-worth clients, relating to preparation and amendment of their personal and familial wills and trusts.

Because law is Derek’s second career, his varied pre-law work allows him to provide his clients a unique mix of legal counseling and real-world common-sense advice. Before entering the practice of law, Derek’s pre-law career included such varied highlights as working in a country and western bar, a state reference library and working in sales management and training for RadioShack and Sprint.

Derek is admitted to practice in all California State Courts and the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.

Memberships:
State Bar of California
American Bar Association
California Lawyers Association [Real Property, Solo and Small Firm, Trusts & Estates Sections]
Palo Alto Area Bar Association

About

Renée Glover Chantler

Over the past 27 years, Renée Glover Chantler—principal and partner of Chantler Law Offices—has earned a reputation for excellence in providing representation to clients engaged in single-party and complex business and real estate litigation. Her current practice emphasizes litigation and strategic business advice in the areas of business contracts, business torts and real estate.

For ten years, Renée served as West Coast Pro Bono Counsel for DLA Piper LLP (US), a leading global law firm. In that role, Renee coordinated the firm’s national pro bono programs, managed the operations of those programs in the firm’s offices in California, Nevada, Washington and Arizona, and served as the primary liaison between the firm’s billing lawyers and their regional legal services organizations, directing her offices’ pursuit of high-quality, impactful, pro bono representations. She was the Pro Bono Department’s point-person on ethics issues and the law of nonprofit organizations.

Over the years Renée developed and managed many innovative pro bono initiatives involving DLA Piper’s attorneys, its clients, competing commercial law firms, and nonprofit organizations. These included award-winning juvenile record sealing and adult records expungement clinics in Sacramento and East Palo Alto; California’s first virtual law clinic, and the San Francisco Pro Bono Alliance, a consortium between DLA Piper and corporations created to provide immigration representation to survivors of domestic violence and other crimes. Renee also played a key role in the creation and initial implementation of DLA Piper’s national signature project for veterans, Serving Those Who Serve Our Country.

Renée was previously associated with Heller, Ehrman White & McAuliffe’s Silicon Valley office, specializing in insurance, business contracts, and unfair competition litigation. She began her career at the renowned real estate boutique, Goldfarb and Lipman, LLP, representing numerous Bay Area cities and non-profit clients in redevelopment and affordable housing litigation and transactions.

Renée has provided ongoing legal practice management consultation to other attorneys throughout her career. Renee formerly served as Consulting Litigation Director for Fortune Law Group (now, Schein & Cai), a full-service minority-owned firm based in San Jose. She also served as Consulting Supervising Attorney for the Volunteer Attorney Program (VAP) at Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, training, mentoring and supervising volunteer commercial attorneys and Bay Area law students to provide meaningful limited scope help to those in need in the Bay Area.

Renee received her Juris Doctor from Stanford Law School in 1991, with an emphasis on real estate and property law. She served as an adjunct clinical professor for the Law School from 1998-2001, simultaneously with her service as the Executive Director of the former East Palo Alto Community Law Project. Renee holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Stanford University, a degree which permits her to leverage the skills and intuition developed in that field towards dramatically improving litigation and business outcomes for her clients.

Throughout her legal career, Renee has maintained a strong commitment to community and public service. She currently is a member of the California State Bar’s Pro Bono Coordinating Committee, having previously served as a Member of the State Bar’s Task Force on Admissions Regulation and Reform (TFARR). She has previously served locally as a Planning Commissioner for the City of East Palo Alto (including as that body’s Vice Chair and Chair), and as Chairperson of the East Palo Alto Rent Stabilization Board. Renee was previously also a member of the California Democratic State Central Committee.

Renee is admitted to practice in all California State Courts, the United States District Court for the Northern and Central Districts of California, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. She has been awarded an AV (“Preeminent”) rating by Martindale Hubbell. Renee was also recently named as a California Super Lawyer by Findlaw, a division of Thomson Reuters.

Memberships:
State Bar of California
American Bar Association
California Lawyers Association [Litigation, Real Property Sections]
Charles Houston Bar Association
San Mateo County Bar Association [Co-Chair, Legal Clinic Committee]