Twenty-three years operating commercial and multifamily assets, now applied to counsel's toughest questions.

I lead operations at a family-owned real estate firm and have spent 23 years in commercial and multifamily property management, development, and brokerage.

Operating scale

• More than two million square feet of commercial space (retail, office, and medical)
• More than twelve thousand multifamily units
• Roughly twenty-five to thirty acquisition due-diligence reviews across office, retail, mixed-use, garden-style, mid-rise, senior, affordable, and market-rate assets

Credentials

I hold the Certified Property Manager (CPM^®) and Accredited Residential Manager (ARM^®) designations from the Institute of Real Estate Management, and I completed the National Apartment Association's CAPS coursework and examination — a designation I let lapse by election while maintaining my CPM continuing education.

My work as an expert witness draws on that credential curriculum as an industry framework for inspection, documentation, preventive maintenance, risk management, staffing, and supervisory oversight.

IREM^®, CPM^®, CERTIFIED PROPERTY MANAGER^®, ARM^®, and ACCREDITED RESIDENTIAL MANAGER^® are registered marks of the Institute of Real Estate Management. Their use identifies credentials held by Emily Goodman Shortall and does not imply IREM endorsement of this practice.

Prior executive roles

Before founding Harvey Goodman Property Management, I served as Regional Vice President at a national multifamily real estate owner/operator, running a multi-state portfolio of more than six thousand units with full P&L accountability, and as Associate General Manager of a 1.5-million-square-foot super-regional center for a national retail real estate company.

IREM leadership

I have served IREM at the national level — on the Governing Council in multiple seats between 2011 and 2016, as Regional Vice President for Region 13, and as chair of the national Membership & Credentialing Committee — and I have been elected to the Governing Council for the 2027–2029 term.

Teaching and recognition

I taught Real Estate Principles & Practices as an adjunct professor at a community college from 2015 to 2019. Industry recognition includes the Journal of Property Management's Top 30 Leaders Under 30 (2009), the IREM Professional Achievement Award, and chapter CPM^® of the Year.

That combination is what I bring to a file: I have written the policies, supervised the people who execute them, and taught the standards to the next generation of managers.

Teaching, instructor development, and continuing education

My teaching background includes service as Real Estate Instructor / Adjunct Faculty at Belmont College (2015–2019), where I taught real estate principles, law, finance, and appraisal in classroom and online formats. This experience supports my ability to explain complex property-management concepts clearly and systematically.

I completed IREM’s Train the Trainer: Outstanding Facilitation classroom program in Chicago, Illinois, in 2014, followed by successful completion of its instructor-development assessment in 2015. This formal training focused on adult instruction and facilitation.

My continuing education includes repeated fair housing and nondiscrimination training across renewal cycles, ethics, brokerage management and supervision, property management, and license law. This study complements my operating experience and informs my evaluation of management practices, training, and oversight.

Selected publications and contributions

I am a published author and featured contributor in the Journal of Property Management, published by the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM). My selected articles include:

• “Make No Apologies: Getting Back to Fundamentals in a Culture of Concessions”
• “Education vs. Experience”
• “Crossing the Divide: Be a Boss, Not a Friend”
• “Telecommuting: Is It Right for Your Business?”
• “Urban Regeneration: Reviving Buildings and Communities”

I was also a featured contributor in “Tales From the Front: An Upfront and Honest Discussion on Starting a Career in Property Management.”

These works appeared under my historical professional names, Emily Goodman and Emily Goodman-Shortall. I am now known professionally as Emily Goodman Shortall, CPM^®, ARM^®, and Emily Shortall.

How I work with counsel

Every engagement starts with a conflict check and a scope conversation. From there, I read the property management agreement, deposition transcripts, interrogatory answers, inspection and vendor records, and the photographs and incident materials. I develop an operator's benchmark for the type of property and jurisdiction at issue, then compare that benchmark to the record.

My reports are organized around operational standards, record application, findings, functional responsibility, and explicit non-opinions. I avoid opinions on legal duty, breach, negligence, causation, and liability — those remain for counsel and the factfinder. Where regulations or safety standards inform the operator benchmark, I present them as operational context and defer to counsel on their legal interpretation.

What I do not opine on

I am not a security-tactics, criminology, ballistics, or security-system engineering expert. On matters involving apartment security, my lane is the multifamily property-management standards side — access control policy, camera and inspection governance, vendor oversight, incident escalation, and how a reasonably prudent operator supervises those systems. I recommend specialty experts where the case calls for them.