Managing Member
and access,
Cliff McKinney is a nationally recognized real estate attorney with more than 20 years of experience advising sophisticated clients in complex real estate, land use, and business transactions across Arkansas and the mid-South. Cliff is part of the firm’s real estate practice, representing Fortune 500 companies, institutional investors, developers, and high-net-worth individuals in multimillion-dollar deals, entitlement strategy, and regulatory compliance. Cliff’s transactional experience spans the acquisition, development, leasing, and disposition of office towers, shopping centers, mixed-use developments, agricultural tracts, and industrial properties. He regularly advises clients on quiet title issues, easement relocations, restrictive covenant modifications, and other complex title matters. His land use and zoning practice includes handling rezonings, special use permits, platting, and subdivision approvals. He also assists clients with site selection, permitting, and operational compliance for regulated uses such as hospitality, restaurant, and alcohol-related enterprises. Cliff frequently advises on real estate development projects that implicate federal, state, and local permitting and environmental regulations, including the Clean Water Act (Section 404 permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers), the National Historic Preservation Act (Section 106 compliance), and guiding clients through floodplain development issues. In addition, Cliff regularly handles complex boundary line issues, adverse possession claims, and prescriptive easements, offering strategic counsel to resolve or mitigate title risk and facilitate closing in high-stakes transactions. Cliff is a Commissioner for the Uniform Law Commission (ULC), where he holds national leadership roles on real property reform. He currently serves as Chair of the Study Committee on Deed Fraud. His work with the ULC reflects his national stature in the field and his influence in shaping model real estate laws adopted across multiple jurisdictions. He also serves on the ULC’s Legislative Council, the Joint Editorial Board for Uniform Real Property Acts, and several study and drafting committees addressing emerging real estate and business law issues. Cliff chairs the Arkansas Bar Association Real Estate Law Section and leads the editorial committee for the state’s Standards for Examination of Real Estate Titles. He is a Fellow of both the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and the American College of Mortgage Attorneys, and he is a frequent CLE speaker and author on real estate law topics. Since 2007, Cliff has served as an adjunct professor at the UA Little Rock Bowen School of Law, where he teaches Real Estate Finance and Real Estate Transactions. He has testified before the Arkansas General Assembly on numerous occasions and has been appointed three times as a Special Associate Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. He is licensed to practice in Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.
