Lillian A. Plata Helps Create Affordable Housing at Conifer Realty

Since the age of fourteen, Lillian A. Plata knew what she truly wanted in life: freedom of choice. The current general counsel at Conifer Realty grew up in an environment where that freedom was more a wish than a possibility. The youngest of six children, and the only girl, Plata was surrounded by a family who loved her deeply but struggled to make dollars stretch.

Plata now advocates for communities, colleagues, and underserved populations with similar goals. That pursuit of choice wasn’t just about getting her out of a tough neighborhood or tax bracket, it was about finding peace. She knows how truly transformational that peace can be, and she considers it her responsibility to help others find it.

While acting as a tax partner at the law firm McManimon, Scotland, and Baumann, Plata spent eight years bringing gargantuan projects to communities that would benefit from them the most. Consider the massive Teachers Village mixed-use collection of buildings—it includes 3 charter schools, a daycare, 203 residential units, and 65,000 square feet of retail space in downtown Newark, New Jersey.

“This was a project that truly helped transform a neighborhood,” Plata says. “That deal leveraged every possible subsidy imaginable in order to make it happen in a community like Newark. There were so many nights spent working until two in the morning, but even at that hour, we handled it with levity while recognizing the importance of the deal. We all understood how important this project was and what it could mean for downtown Newark.”

Plata also spent six years working on the landmark American Dream mall, located in East Rutherford, New Jersey. No ordinary mall, the American Dream boasts a water park, an indoor theme park, a ski slope, and high-end luxury retail locations. The $2.9 billion project took years of collaboration with local and state government officials, investors, and banks.

“It was the largest tax-exempt bond deal in the nation—a one of a kind, transformational redevelopment project. Every time I drive by it, I feel a sense of pride,” she says.

Now at Conifer Realty, Plata brings her expertise and skill to an organization whose sole mission is to provide high-quality, affordable housing that addresses housing shortage needs on a national level. The attorney says that every time she looks around her organization or the work on her agenda, she’s reminded that she’s exactly where she wants to be.

Plata knows a thing or two about housing insecurity, too. While living in Irvington, New Jersey, her home caught on fire three different times, ultimately burning down entirely. She’d shared this home with immediate family and uncles.

This was the home where Plata spent extensive time with her grandmother, a woman who refused to let her quadriplegic son be placed in a hospital and managed all the special care needs for Plata’s uncle. Plata watched her four-foot-eleven grandmother hoist her uncle up to bathe and transport him daily.

Plata’s mother worked twelve-hour shifts in a shade factory and her father was always on the road as a long-haul truck driver, which taught her about the value of hard work and discipline. She watched family members not always make the best decisions and the resulting negative consequences, feeling stuck in a community known for being a difficult place to live. She knew there had to be another way.

So, she found heroes in the people around her that aided her journey, success, and ultimately peace. There was Telia who lived around the corner and took Plata in for a few days after her house burned down. She opened Plata’s world up to the power of reading. There’s her cousin Vivian who introduced Plata to pre-college programs and mentored her throughout her entire education. There’s Mr. Hawkins, the track coach who helped Plata get into Mother Seton Regional Catholic School, ensuring that Plata wouldn’t have to attend one of the tougher high schools in New Jersey.

But even though she’d rather talk about those who helped her along the way, there is still Plata herself to recognize. She essentially paid her own way through parochial school, working night shifts at Dunkin’ Donuts and studying during the downtime. There was Plata getting on a bus at 5:30 a.m. to make it to class. And now there is Plata, a woman of color, general counsel, and an advocate who feels an absolute obligation to help raise other people up.

“I want to help more people make it to decision-making tables—people who haven’t been afforded access to those tables in the past,” Plata says. “It’s incumbent on me and my position to be present for anyone that I can. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped learning; it just means that I have a higher profile to help others achieve their goals.”