Area of Emphasis
Chris Farmakis has developed a reputation for delivering reliable, practical, efficient business-oriented advice to his clients. His legal practice focuses on these disciplines: acquisitions and divestitures; complex corporate and commercial transactions; real estate transactions; entity, joint venture and partnership structuring and formation; general business counseling; and project implementation and management of large document management projects. He is a shareholder and member of the firm’s board of directors.
Mr. Farmakis routinely performs complex acquisitions and divestitures for publicly traded and privately owned companies. He has substantial experience drafting and negotiating acquisition agreements, letters of intent, opinion letters, employment agreements, transition service agreements, and technology transfer and licensing agreements. He also prepares and files Hart-Scott-Rodino regulatory filings in connection with large transactions. Currently, Mr. Farmakis acts as national acquisition counsel for a large, publicly traded telecommunications infrastructure company. During the past two years, he and his team of seven professionals have undertaken over eighty acquisitions for this client in the United States and Puerto Rico.
Mr. Farmakis also has extensive knowledge and experience drafting and negotiating many types of commercial transaction agreements in the areas of purchasing and procurement, construction, real estate sales and leasing, technology and environmental. Such experience includes the preparation of purchase orders, commercial and construction terms and conditions, licensing agreements, leases, real estate purchase and sale agreements, reseller and OEM agreements, product manufacturing agreements, software development and licensing agreements, non-disclosure and non-competition agreements, professional service agreements, consulting agreements and remediation contracting, transportation, and disposal agreements.
Mr. Farmakis routinely counsels clients with respect to large real estate transactions including transactions involving environmentally contaminated properties. He works closely with the firm’s environmental regulatory/compliance attorneys to properly structure these transactions to allocate the risks of environmental liabilities between the parties. Mr. Farmakis also acts as regional real estate counsel for a large, publicly traded company. In this role, he is responsible for drafting and negotiating leases and easements, reviewing surveys and procuring and satisfying the conditions necessary to procure title insurance. He also acts as national title insurance procurement counsel for a company that leases and acquires property across the United States.
Mr. Farmakis also has extensive experience structuring and creating business entities, joint ventures and partnerships.
In addition, Mr. Farmakis provides complex project implementation services for large scale due diligence and contract management projects. In this regard, he has organized and managed numerous national projects with teams of thirty or more professionals working on multi-month projects. In 2002, Mr. Farmakis was instrumental in starting Solvaire Technologies, L.P., an affiliate of Babst Calland, to focus solely on such projects.
Background
Mr. Farmakis graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh in 1990, with a B.A. in Economics. Having graduated in the top two percent of his undergraduate class, Mr. Farmakis was awarded the honor of University Scholar from the University of Pittsburgh. Mr. Farmakis received his J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1993, graduating cum laude. He was a staff member and Headnotes Editor for the University of Pittsburgh Law Review.
Memberships and Affiliations
Mr. Farmakis is a member of the Allegheny County, Pennsylvania and American Bar Associations. He also serves on the Board of Directors of the Pittsburgh chapter of the Coro Center of Civic Leadership. Mr. Farmakis has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America® for Corporate Law since 2020, Real Estate Law since 2024 and for Mergers and Acquisitions Law in the 2026 edition. He was also selected to the 2006-2008 Pennsylvania Rising Stars and 2010-2013 Pennsylvania Super Lawyers lists (Thomson Reuters).
