About
Affordable housing deals in New York rarely close on one source of capital, and assembling the layers takes months of work across federal tax credit programs, city agencies, lenders, and equity investors. Russell A. Kivler is an attorney and Managing Partner at Hirschen Singer & Epstein LLP (HSE) who builds those transactions for developers, owners, operators, and investors throughout the New York City metropolitan area.
He joined HSE in 2004, became a partner in 2010, and now co-manages the firm alongside Oliver Chase. Over that span the practice grew into one of New York's leading affordable housing law firms, and Kivler has helped facilitate the development and rehabilitation of hundreds of thousands of housing units across the region. City & State named both managing partners to its 2025 Law Power 100 list.
PRACTICE
Kivler represents clients in every stage of affordable and mixed-income housing development, from acquisition and site control through construction financing, conversion to permanent financing, and long-term regulatory compliance. His transactional work covers joint ventures, public-private partnerships, dispositions, and the acquisition and sale of regulated assets.
Much of the complexity in these deals sits in how the financing sources fit together. Kivler structures developments that combine Low-Income Housing Tax Credits with tax-exempt bonds, HUD and FHA insured loans, and subsidy and tax abatement programs administered by the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and the New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC). Zoning and land use questions run through the same projects, so he advises on those matters as part of the development work instead of treating them as a separate track.
Hirschen Singer & Epstein LLP works across public-private partnerships, affordable housing and community development, real estate finance, tax abatements, zoning, and land use, and Kivler's practice touches each of those areas.
HARMONY
Russell A. Kivler is the Founder of Harmony, a technology venture focused on lease-up and ongoing compliance for income regulated apartments. Income restricted buildings carry annual certification, reporting, and eligibility requirements that can run 30 years or longer, and the work is still handled manually in much of the industry. Harmony grew out of Kivler's view of that gap from the legal side of the same transactions.
BOARDS, POLICY AND SPEAKING
Kivler serves on the Board of the New York State Association for Affordable Housing (NYSAFAH), the trade association representing the state's affordable housing industry, and on the Advisory Board of the NYU Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. He is a frequent moderator and panelist on affordable housing policy, finance, and development, including programs hosted by the New York City Bar Association and Bisnow's New York Affordable Housing Conference.
EDUCATION
Kivler graduated cum laude from Gettysburg College with a B.A. in Economics and Business Management, and earned his J.D., magna cum laude, from American University Washington College of Law.
BAR ADMISSIONS
Russell A. Kivler is admitted to practice law in New York and New Jersey.