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  • Steven M. Goldman
  • Partner

“My approach combines extensive hospitality industry experience with practical legal and business advice tailored to each client’s goals. Having represented owners, operators, and hospitality brands, I understand the different perspectives involved and work to develop solutions that make sense both legally and from a business standpoint.”

Practice Areas

Bar Admissions

  • Georgia
  • Washington, DC

Education

  • J.D., University of Georgia School of Law, cum laude (1985)
  • B.A., University of Vermont, cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa (1982)
Our Team Steven M. Goldman

Steven M. Goldman, Partner in the Firm’s Maryland office, is a highly experienced and respected hospitality and franchise lawyer. Steve represents hotel owners, operators, REITs, and investors in franchise management, development, workout agreements, and operational matters throughout the United States and internationally.

Prior to joining the Firm, Steve spent 15 years with Marriott International, where he served as Associate General Counsel and Executive Vice President and as Secretary of the Marriott Franchisee Association. Earlier in his career, he served as General Counsel of Sheraton’s Franchise Division and as Senior Litigation Counsel for Holiday Inn Worldwide. He also served as a Federal law clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

His practice services include:

  • Hospitality Agreements: Structuring, renewing, and terminating franchise management, subordination and non-disturbance agreements (SNDAs), and other complex hospitality-related agreements in single- and multi-unit transactions.
  • Hotel Life-Cycle Counseling: Strategic counsel throughout the hotel life cycle, from development and branding, including creation of hotel-level soft brands, through rebranding, workouts, and sale.
  • Mixed-use Resorts: Domestic and international destination resorts, residential sales and rental programs, and mixed-use agreements.
  • Casino Resorts: Branding, franchise, and marketing agreement structuring with particular experience addressing operational and customer database and marketing issues.  
  • Private Ownership Clubs: Developing brand systems and negotiating and drafting management and other core agreements.

Steve also serves as a mediator in domestic and international franchise and management hospitality disputes and has served as an expert in franchise and management agreement matters.

Outside of work, Steve enjoys spending time with his family and four rescue dogs, as well as golfing, hiking, and reading history and science fiction.

  • Represented public REIT in relicensing and repositioning negotiations with several major brands—including new franchise agreements, guarantees, lender “comfort letters,” and, in some cases, termination agreements—in acquisition of a multi-unit, full-service portfolio.

  • Represented developer of adaptive reuse project to create a branded boutique hotel. Work included providing counsel on brand management agreement, lender SNDA, city grant of funds for new hotels, and overall corporate structure to meet conflicting counter-party requirements.

  • Acted as sole arbitrator in a breach of management agreement dispute and as a member of a three-person panel for a multi-unit brand management dispute in South America. Both arbitrations were successfully settled.

  • Represented numerous hotel owners in negotiations to enter into or terminate an existing franchise or brand management agreement and reposition the hotel into a different brand system.

  • Represented owner/operator of a significant casino, lodging, and entertainment resort on the Las Vegas Strip in successful renegotiation of multi-brand franchise and technology requirements to meet owner’s operational and marketing needs for a casino resort.

  • Represented the owner of a dual-branded hotel being developed as part of an upscale mixed-use development in negotiations with a major brand franchisor.

  • Represented the owner/operator of a new luxury Caribbean resort in negotiations for a soft brand franchise that included residential units and rental program.

  • Represented owner of a new hospitality brand in creating the core management agreement, ancillary agreements, and overall “system” for a new hospitality brand.

  • American Bar Association Forum on Franchising – Past Chair; Program Co-Chair; Publications Officer; Director, Corporate Counsel Division
  • Georgetown Hospitality Law Conference – Planning Committee Member
  • Hotel Consumer Protection Coalition – Lead counsel
  • American Bar Association, Southeast Regional Workshops – Planning Co-Chair
  • American University, Washington College of Law – Adjunct Professor