Our Firm

"Suum Cuique Tribuere, Hanc Tuemur": Latin for the proposition that "each person is entitled to his due". It is with this commitment that the law firm of Eckley & Associates has become prominent in its full and faithful service to the community since 1978.

In today's tough business world, where success or failure is constantly at stake and where being the first to know new trends is as critical as keeping up with old ones, Eckley & Associates has the depth of business skill and foresight to match: It serves its business, consumer, real estate and construction clientele in the preparation of all ranges of business formation and funding, the generation and analyses of complex documents, the fashioning of lawful business procedures, credit and risk management, day-to-day operational consultation and the handling of complex real estate, finance and construction litigation, of course; but more uniquely, it serves its clientele by providing new and better ideas.

Aggressive techniques and innovative solutions have been the hallmarks of Eckley & Associates in the thousands of cases it has handled during the national business, real estate and construction cataclysms of the last number of years. On behalf of its clientele and with total dedication to the clients' interests, it has unflinchingly taken on any challenge, sought to obtain any lawful goal, clear any obstacle, protect against any threat, remedy any wrong. Through its knowledge of the law and the practicalities of each area of commerce, it has invented new and realistic solutions to cope with the more complicated problems of the times. When the economy has posed new questions, Eckley & Associates has consistently had new answers.

From Founder J. Robert Eckley

"The roller-coaster economy of the last several years has been at least partially democratic: it has equally challenged the financial framework of all levels of our community. Unfortunately, this is not a momentary economic adjustment from which the community will emerge intact tomorrow for business as usual; those deeply involved in this business world know that what appears as adjustment on the surface is in fact a catharsis in which old rules are being permanently dismantled and new ones are being put in their place on a scale that may be revolutionary. "In times like these, when the old ways and those who cling to them are becoming obsolete, when competition in the marketplace is more rugged than any other time in recent memory, when business leaders are expected by their firms and their customers to be knowledgeable, marketable, imaginative and aggressive (or be replaced by someone who is), should their Legal Counsel be any less accountable? "Strength, loyalty, boldness, innovativeness and know-how: These are the minimum criterion with which to measure modern commercial Legal Counsel. At Eckley & Associates we insist that Legal Counsel should not be an 'expense' to a client. It should be an 'asset.' With what is to be lost and what is to be gained so great, the times demand no less."

About J. Robert Eckley

J. Robert Eckley is an attorney, Realtor, litigator, builder and forensic engineer and educator who deals primarily in real estate, banking, construction and finance on a multi-state basis. He is president of the law firm of Eckley & Associates, a multi-state practice, is the Forensic Manager of National BuildMasters, a forensic contractor, and is President of and equity-holder in The Westcourt Financial Group, a real estate consultancy and investment firm. His present practice focuses upon real estate financing, banking, agency, securities and foreclosure litigation. When construction issues or failures are involved, he manages forensic investigation and litigation involving those failures and casualties, and handles the related professional construction, engineering, architectural and inspection claims and defense.

J. Robert Eckley received his B.S. degree summa cum laude in 1973. After an engagement in the builder and electrical trades he served a decade in plant engineering design and management and forensic operations research for a Fortune 500 firm. He later continued his schooling and received his J.D. with honors in 1977. He commenced law practice by founding Eckley & Associates in 1978, a return to the Eckley professional heritage after a three-century hiatus. Mr. Eckley's greatest grandfather in America was the Hon. and Rev. John Eckley, appointed first of the four Commissioner Panel governing the Province of Pennsylvania by William Penn in 1688 and later appointed Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

J. Robert Eckley is admitted to a number of state and federal courts and has been or is member of the American Bar Association, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, the Federal Bar Association, the Oregon, California and Arizona Association of Realtors, many country-wide Boards, was a director for the Oregon Escrow Council and is a member the National Association of Homebuilders and the Mid-Valley Chapter of the Arizona Association of Homebuilders.

He was a member of the Beverly Hills Board of Realtors for 4 years and instructed extensively in the Los Angeles area.  He was instrumental in the legal work behind the Fidelity Federal Savings & Loan Assn. v. De La Cuesta, the signal due-on-sale in California.  He gave congressional testimony in support of the National Association of Realtors’ position in the equally influential due-on-sale defense of the Garn Bill in 1982.  In 1986, he successfully defended the majority owners of State Savings & Loan in a $2 billion claim by the FHLBB in one of the country’s first major bank closure litigations where regulators attempted to collect the real estate crash losses of the last ‘80s against the institutional principals.
He engaged in licensed real estate investment and brokerage in Arizona, is a CCIM Affiliate (Phoenix, Arizona Chapter), an member of the Commercial Committee of the Phoenix Board, former member of the Phoenix Board's Grievance Committee and the Board prosecutor for that committee, most Board education committees at his current business locations, the Portland, Oregon Multi-Family Housing Council, National Association of Homebuilders, Oregon Escrow Counsel, Valley Chapter, of which he is a past officer, and many other legal and real estate industry affiliations. Other non-real estate associations: He is a member of the International Association of Financial Planners, past member of the Construction, Trusts and Estate Committees of the Arizona and Oregon State Bar Associations.

J. Robert Eckley is a member of the national Real Estate Educators Association and regularly instructs accredited real estate education in 10 states. The Gannet News Service referred to him in a 1991 nationally syndicated article as one of the few ".. national experts in real estate liability.."

J. Robert Eckley writes for various national, state and Board real estate and insurance publications and has a column in various Board magazines. He is named in the prestigious Marquis' Who's Who in America and Who's Who in American Law. In 1995, he was named Who's Who in American Real Estate. He is appointed to the national American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM), a scientific organization analyzing national toxic levels and real estate appraisal standards in toxic or impaired environments. The ASTM findings, standards and formats are often adopted as rule, law or practice by the federal and state governments, industry, regulators and national lenders. He is a member of the American Society of Structural Engineers (ASSE), Arizona Structural Engineers (ASE), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the National Home Builder's Association (NAHB), the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) and the Arizona Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA of Az.). In 2006 he was inducted into the Arizona Society of Certified Fraud Examiners. Mr. Eckley was selected to present the evolutionary "'Green Liabilities' for Architecture and Interior Design in the 22nd Century" at the ASID's National Convention in New Orleans in 2008.

J. Robert Eckley was selected by the National Association of Realtors to speak on the future of real estate and the professional risks of the 90's at the 1991 national convention in Las Vegas at which he received perfect 4.0 speaker's score from the NAR auditors, one of the hand full of instructors who have ever received a perfect score at NAR. He is widely consulted by state Real Estate Commissioners on pending law and has given congressional testimony on key real estate economic policy. He was the 1993 selection for keynote convention speaker upon state economic trends for the convention of the Arizona Association for Economic Development (AAED), a powerful organization composed of all of the most influential government, Fortune 500, banking, investment and political entities and leaders in the state which is nationally attended by every important organization doing business in Arizona.

J. Robert Eckley was the 1994 Keynote Speaker for the National Association of Real Estate Exchangers held in Las Vegas in May, 1994, a marketing session attended by the most active commercial exchangers, corporate property managers and exchange financiers and Accommodators across the U. S. and Canada. By popular request from the membership, he was re-invited for the convention when it took place in Phoenix in January, 1997.  In January of 2009 J. Robert Eckley was asked to give an educational seminar which he entitled “Seven Deadly Inspection Sins and How to Avoid Them, Part II” at the annual ASHI convention, “Inspection World” in Orlando, Florida.
J. Robert Eckley was engaged by the state of New Mexico under Commission President Gayla Brumfeld to draft an entire new real estate agency law and to assist in the analyses of a new state-wide comprehensive land use program. This program is now a model for other states. He was the keynote speaker at the September 1998 Convention of the state Realtors convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he received top scores.

The last federally-published case (intellectual property) in which he participated and set precedent in this U.S. District on the question of whether or not a builder can copyright aspects of a residential floorplan and enjoin all other builders from using it. Representing a large northern Arizona builder, he prevailed on the point that a derivative design, though first copyrighted by another and even if the other was unaware of it being derivative, was not protected and that a builder could build the same or similar features. Paradise Homes of Havasu v. Heritage Homes, CIV 97-1169 PCT ROS (U.S. Dist. Arizona).

J. Robert Eckley has handled over 5,500 real estate, banking, financing, securities construction, inspection and real estate agency cases as a lawyer, and has taught thousands of accredited hours of real estate and construction law, inspection practices, law, theory and practiced or been specially admitted or taught in half the states of the union.

J. Robert Eckley has been previously appointed to the Membership Assistance Committee with the State Bar, a committee that monitors the practice and rehabilitation of lawyers who are having practice difficulties for various reasons, including emotional disorders or drug abuse. In that capacity, members assist the remanded practitioner to conduct a competent and ethical practice, to follow the directives of the Bar and to rehabilitate themselves. J. Robert Eckley was appointed Program Chairperson by Mr. Beans, then Supervisor of the State Bar Continuing Education Program, to organize, compose, direct and speak at a large state-wide Arizona Bar continuing education program on real estate law, real estate law as it applied to brokerage practices in 1995. It was the most heavily-attended session by the practitioners in his area of the Bar that year (almost 300) and his peers gave him a nearly perfect score in speaking and competency.

J. Robert Eckley successfully represented the American Society of Home Inspectors in the landmark real estate disclosure and standard-of-care Supreme Court case of Lombardo v. Albu (199 Ariz. 97, 14 P.3d 288 [2000]) regarding real estate and defect disclosure.  He also sucessfully defended The Lofts at Fillmore v. Reliance Commercial Construction  CV-07-0416-PR (Ariz. S. Ct., 2008), which protected all Arizona’s homeowner’s new-build warranty rights and was instrumental in the passage of HB2008 (Arizona), repealing the pro-deficiency foreclosure statutes in Arizona in 2009.

J. Robert Eckley was appointed by the Arizona Real Estate Commissioner as the sub-chairperson of the Commissioner's advisory IDW Committee on Real Estate Disclosure and is co-author of the Commissioner's Training Guide for Instructors in that program. He is the general counsel for the American Society of Home Inspectors and the Arizona Alliance of Home Inspectors. In December, 2003, he was appointed by the Arizona Registrar of Contractors to the Registrar's Consumer Advisory Panel, an inter-agency enforcement panel composed of the Director of the Board of Technical Registration (engineers, architects, others), the Department of Justice, the Arizona Real Estate Department, the Arizona Subdivision Department, the Registrar of Contractors, several others and J. Robert Eckley.

J. Robert Eckley is also the co-author of the prime Disclosure Handbook for ADRE and the key ADRE trainer for the Arizona instructors of the mandatory Disclosure Classes for all Arizona real estate licensees. He also instructs accredited construction, construction inspection and real estate classes.

J. Robert Eckley was granted for his long, varied and accomplished public services the Governor's Award of Recognition in Arizona in 2006 and was conferred the U.S. President's Award of Merit in 1985 by President Ronald Reagan.