“Longevity has its advantages,” Uranowitz says. “It affords an ease and comfort level.”

Yet also important to building a business are the referrals from clients. “We represented Fannie Mae in a large bankruptcy sale,” Uranowitz recalled. “Days after, we got a call from Fannie’s attorney referring other business.”

Now, he says, Gebroe-Hammer is dealing with the second and third generation of clients – and sometimes is training and hiring their children. “That’s the ultimate validation,” he says. “These are people who trust us with their future.”

That principle comes straight from the founders Mel Gebroe and Morris Hammer, who taught Uranowitz and other staff that business relationships are “not all about business. It’s built on integrity. There are a lot of components that go into relationships. There are many doors we are able to open as a result of Mel and Morris’ relationships with prominent people in the industry,” he says.

It’s important to remember, he notes, that clients aren’t the only important relationships that can lead to other opportunities. Attorneys, bankers and other brokers also are critical, never more so than during the current downturn, when the company was the exclusive broker approved by the US Bankruptcy Court for a number of Section 363 sales for debtors-in-possession. Shortly after one of these transactions, an attorney for a Government-Sponsored Enterprise lender suggested Gebroe-Hammer to market other defaulted assets for his client.

And more business should continue.

“We’re not just thinking one deal with someone,” Uranowitz says. “We’re about making 20 to 30 deals over a lifetime.”