Trowbridge Nieh LLP is a small securities law practice built around one niche: helping sponsors of real estate syndications raise private capital the right way. The firm is licensed in California, with attorneys based in Massachusetts, Utah, and Texas as well. It was formally registered as a partnership in 2020 and runs on a flat fee model rather than billing by the hour, taking on sponsors from across the country who need their offerings structured, their capital raises run cleanly, and their compliance handled. Alongside that core securities work, the firm also does estate planning for families in California, Texas, and Massachusetts.

The practice is led by founding partners Gene Trowbridge, Esq., CCIM, and Jon Nieh, Esq., with Tim Ivey, Esq. rounding out the partnership. While the firm only took its current name and structure in 2020, its roots go back much further: founding partner Trowbridge has practiced securities law continuously since 1995, and the many years of experience the firm references publicly reflects that long history across his career and the string of earlier partnerships he built before Trowbridge Nieh existed in its present form.

How the Firm Came Together

Trowbridge Nieh was registered as a partnership in 2020 and is registered in California. It’s the latest in a line of securities law partnerships built around Gene Trowbridge, who spent close to a decade as an active real estate syndicator starting in 1972 before being admitted to the California Bar in 1996.

Before Trowbridge Nieh came together, Trowbridge had already run other partnerships in this space, most notably Trowbridge Taylor LLP, founded with Kim Taylor, Esq. He’s also spent years training other attorneys in syndication and crowdfunding work, having brought three different law partners up to speed in the specialty since 2008.

The current firm reflects its partnership between Trowbridge and Jon Nieh, Esq., a UCLA undergrad and UCLA Law grad who is also a real estate investor and CCIM candidate himself. Nieh handles deal structuring, entity formation, and securities compliance for sponsor clients, and runs the firm’s estate planning work in California and Texas. The third name on the door, Tim Ivey, Esq., graduated cum laude from New England Law Boston with a Compliance and Risk Management certificate, and splits his time between securities work alongside the other two partners and leading estate planning in Massachusetts. Between the three of them, the firm’s attorneys now cover Massachusetts, Utah, California, and Texas, putting them in every time zone in the continental United States.

What the Firm Does

Helping Sponsors Raise Capital

The bulk of the firm’s work involves drafting and structuring private securities offerings for sponsors, primarily under Rule 506(b) and 506(c) of Regulation D. The firm has put together more than a thousand offerings over the years and helped clients raise upward of eight billion dollars in private capital, with most deals falling somewhere between two and fifty million dollars and a median offering size around two and a half million. That work spans the usual range of commercial real estate asset classes: multifamily housing, self-storage, hospitality properties, investment funds, and other syndicated structures. The client base runs from people doing their first deal to seasoned operators who’ve stuck with the firm for a decade or more.

Estate Planning

Outside of securities work, the firm also handles estate planning for families in California, Texas, and Massachusetts, covering wills, trusts, healthcare directives, and asset distribution. The pitch here is straightforward: help clients get their affairs in order with as little friction and confusion as possible.

How They Bill

Rather than billing by the hour, the firm quotes a flat fee up front for its securities work, which it positions as a point of difference in a market where boutique securities practices often bill hourly. Clients also get direct access to the attorneys themselves rather than working primarily through junior staff.

The People Behind the Firm

Gene Trowbridge founded the firm and remains its lead figure. He came into real estate as a syndicator in 1972, passed the California Bar in 1996, and has practiced securities law continuously since 1995, spanning every major regulatory change the field has seen in that time. He’s held the CCIM designation since 1977 and taught for the Institute for more than forty years, eventually earning Senior Emeritus Instructor status. He’s also the author of It’s a Whole New Business!, now in its fifth edition.

Jon Nieh co-founded the firm alongside Trowbridge. He studied at UCLA for both his undergraduate and law degrees and is a real estate investor and CCIM candidate in his own right. His work at the firm centers on deal structuring, entity formation, and securities compliance, and he also leads estate planning for clients in California and Texas.

Tim Ivey rounds out the partnership. He graduated cum laude from New England Law Boston, earning a Compliance and Risk Management certificate along the way. He works on securities matters alongside Trowbridge and Nieh and heads up the firm’s estate planning practice in Massachusetts.

Reputation and Reach

Trowbridge Nieh serves sponsors across the country, with its securities work available in all fifty states thanks to the federal preemption that applies to Regulation D offerings. A number of long-running client relationships, some stretching back seven to ten years or more, point to a fairly sticky client base. Clients have generally praised the firm’s documentation as clean and easy for investors to actually read, and several have credited the firm’s educational content and live workshops with teaching them how syndication works in the first place.

The firm keeps an active YouTube channel under the handle @tnllp, mostly featuring Trowbridge walking through securities compliance topics, Regulation D mechanics, and deal structuring basics. It also produces a recurring interview series called TNL Talks, pairing Trowbridge with other commercial real estate and CCIM professionals to talk through syndication trends, the tension between being a broker and a syndicator, and advice for people just getting started. On some business and professional networking platforms, the firm also appears under the name Trowbridge Law Group LLP, a branding variation that runs alongside its formal Trowbridge Nieh LLP registration.