Debra Yogodzinski, Rogers Yogodzinski

DC has the best lawyers in the country (we're not biased at all). To highlight some of the city's best commercial real estate attorneys, we applied extensive use of statistics and the scientific method and bring you our latest installment of the legal minds that help DC's real estate industry thrive. (Check out Part 1 and Part 2.)

After more than 30 years as a partner at large law firms, last year Debra opened up a real estate boutique, Rogers Yogodzinski, with Ed Rogers. "It's been fabulous," she says. Her practice focuses on DC real estate development, often working on public-private transactions and mixed-use projects. That includes past deals such as the Newseum and ongoing projects like the rehabbing of Hine School, and transformation of Gallaudet's Sixth Street NE land into residential, retail and office space (for which it just chose JBG as developer). One project wrapped last year after almost a decade: the redevelopment of a church at 10th and G Street NW by Skanska into a 24K SF church space and an 188K SF office building. (First Congregational UCC owned the property for 150 years and founded the first homeless feeding program there in the '70s.) Debra became interested in real estate after clerking at HUD to put herself through law school at Catholic, and taking a class with a prof who made real estate fun. (For the record, Debra still thinks it is.) When she's not working, she's traveling. Two years ago Debra was in South Africa (above), last year in Umbria, this summer in Scotland and London, and the day after Christmas, she heads to Argentina.