Charles Naselsky
| Charles Naselsky | |
| Nationality | American |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Attorney, business advisor |
| Known for | Founder and principal of CMN Advisors |
| Education | Lafayette College (B.A.) Seton Hall University School of Law (J.D.) |
| Website | https://charlesnaselsky.com |
Charles M. Naselsky is an American corporate, transactional, and real estate attorney. He is the founder and principal of CMN Advisors, an independent legal and business advisory practice based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and has been a member of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania since 1987.[1] Over a career spanning more than four decades, he has advised closely held businesses, family offices, private investors, and executives on real estate, business transactions, finance, and restructuring matters.[2] In addition to his advisory practice, he holds leadership and counsel roles in several criminal justice reform and reentry initiatives, including an American Bar Association committee chairmanship.[3]
Early life and education
Naselsky attended Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he studied in the college's Government and Law program and received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1982.[2] He went on to earn his Juris Doctor from Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey, in 1985.[2][1] He was admitted to the Bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1987.[1]
Legal career
According to his official biography, Naselsky held partner-level positions at several large national and international law firms, where he provided full-service legal advisory and consultancy to business clients across real estate, finance, restructuring, corporate governance, and capital formation.[2] His practice has focused on closely held and private ventures, including clients in real estate, entertainment, and leisure assets.[2]
His transactional work has encompassed the acquisition, leasing, and disposition of real estate across office, industrial and warehouse, multi-family, retail, hotel and lodging, land, and mixed-use asset classes.[2] He has represented owners, lenders, and investors on a turn-key basis, managing transactions from concept and diligence through documentation, underwriting, and closing, and from operation through disposition.[2] His real estate investment work has included tax-incentive and enterprise-zone projects, and his biography notes that he has managed the full deal team of third-party professionals across contract, diligence, RFP, land use, financing, construction, leasing, sales, and disposition phases.[2] He has also provided portfolio-level and single-asset lease negotiation and management on office, retail, and warehouse properties.[2]
Naselsky has also structured financing, capital, and venture transactions, including the presentation of investment opportunities to principals, investors, lenders, and regulators.[2] His capital-formation work has included raising capital through private placements and Regulation D offerings, creating investment vehicles and capital models, and serving as a lead participant in promoting-team presentations.[2] His real estate structuring experience further includes 1031 exchange investment structuring and exit strategies, as well as the identification of target acquisition opportunities and related project diligence.[2] According to his biography, he has been retained as an advisor on unusual financial and vehicle structures and out-of-the-ordinary opportunities, designing the overall approach to credit, acquisition, and capital planning.[2]
Beyond transaction execution, his advisory work has covered internal controls and compliance mechanisms, risk analysis and protocols, organizational management, and the evaluation of investment decisions, acquisitions, expansions, and restructures.[2] According to his biography, he has also supervised litigation and government-relations aspects of going concerns on behalf of clients.[2] He has conducted diligence and investigations and acted as special counsel as part of underwriting, and has managed the intake, workup, and management of strategic partnerships and joint ventures on behalf of ownership, lenders, and financial partners.[2] His biography also describes strategic planning and opportunity exploration for theater management companies, race track developers, and hotel and leisure operators, including hands-on support to decision-makers on day-to-day operations and on potential acquisitions and investments.[2]
His firm biography additionally describes day-to-day advisory work for closely held and family businesses, crisis management, dispute prevention and resolution, and capital-event planning, including the sale of business components.[4] His biography also emphasizes reporting and communication practices developed for senior executives and decision-makers, and team-building and relationship management across deal teams and third-party professionals.[2]
CMN Advisors
Naselsky founded CMN Advisors as an independent legal and business advisory practice serving privately held businesses, investors, family offices, and executives.[4] The firm describes its model as combining the perspective developed in major law firms with the responsiveness and flexibility of an independent practice, with clients working directly with senior counsel on every engagement and engagements structured to reflect the complexity of the matter, the client's objectives, and the economic considerations involved.[4]
The firm positions its advice as extending beyond legal risk to execution, timing, and commercial economics, and describes its approach as emphasizing direct principal involvement, senior-level judgment, and commercially practical solutions tailored to each engagement.[4] Its stated client base includes privately held and family businesses, real estate investors and developers, family offices, and corporate executives, with the practice acting as transaction counsel, strategic advisor, or an extension of an existing professional team depending on the matter.[4]
The practice is organized around four core areas:[4]
- Real Estate & Investment Transactions — acquisitions, dispositions, leasing, financing, investment structuring, recapitalizations, restructurings, and transaction execution
- Business Transactions & Corporate Advisory — business acquisitions and sales, joint ventures, private capital transactions, ownership arrangements, and governance
- Strategic & Special Situation Advisory — workouts, financial restructurings, business transitions, dispute avoidance, succession considerations, and complex commercial challenges
- Outside General Counsel & Special Engagements — ongoing or project-specific senior counsel, transaction oversight, management advice, and coordination with a client's existing professional team
The firm also undertakes select special engagements involving individuals, executives, professionals, and closely held businesses confronting unusual or sensitive business and financial circumstances. The firm's description of this work covers managing business affairs, ownership interests, banking and commercial relationships, financial obligations, restructuring, restitution, forfeiture and fines, and the preservation or restoration of professional and commercial opportunities, coordinating with other counsel and advisors where appropriate.[4] The firm notes that these services are business and financial advisory engagements and do not constitute criminal defense representation.[4]
Professional involvement
Naselsky serves as co-chair of the Parole, Probation & Reentry Committee of the American Bar Association's Criminal Justice Section.[3] The Criminal Justice Section is the ABA's home for prosecutors, defense counsel, judges, academics, and other criminal justice professionals, and its committees develop policy and programming on issues across the criminal legal system; the Parole, Probation & Reentry Committee addresses legal and policy questions around community supervision and the reentry of formerly incarcerated people into professional and commercial life.[3]
He is research counsel to the Federal Expungement Initiative, an organization advocating for the creation of a federal record-relief mechanism for people with federal criminal records.[5] The initiative promotes federal expungement and sealing legislation, on the ground that the absence of a general federal record-relief mechanism leaves people who have completed federal sentences facing continuing barriers to employment, housing, and professional licensing.[5]
He is also a member of the White Collar Support Group, a peer-support community for people navigating the white-collar justice system, associated with the criminal justice reform platform Prisonist.org.[6] The group holds regular peer meetings and describes its mission as helping members accept responsibility, make amends, and rebuild their professional and personal lives after justice-system involvement.[6]
Naselsky's professional biography connects this work to his advisory practice, presenting these initiatives as addressing the economic and professional barriers that can follow justice-system involvement, complementing the firm's business and transactional work.[4]
External links
- Charles Naselsky — Official Site
- CMN Advisors — Firm Site
- Charles Naselsky on LinkedIn
- Charles Naselsky on Justia
- Charles Naselsky on Medium
- Charles Naselsky on Crunchbase
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Charles Naselsky — Lawyer Profile". Justia. Retrieved 2026-11-02.
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 "Charles Naselsky — Official Biography". charlesnaselsky.com. Retrieved 2026-11-02.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Parole, Probation & Reentry Committee — ABA Criminal Justice Section". American Bar Association. Retrieved 2026-11-02.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 "CMN Advisors — Legal & Business Advisory". cmnadvisors.com. Retrieved 2026-11-02.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Federal Expungement Initiative". Federal Expungement Initiative. Retrieved 2026-11-02.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "White Collar Support Group — Prisonist.org". Prisonist.org. Retrieved 2026-11-02.