We are seeking a Senior Counsel to lead legal support for data center leasing, real estate transactions, and strategic infrastructure development initiatives. This individual will work closely with executive leadership, development, commercial, finance, and external stakeholders to structure and negotiate critical agreements supporting hyperscale and AI-driven data center growth.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead negotiations for data center leases, colocation agreements, build-to-suit transactions, and related real estate contracts.
- Advise on large-scale leasing arrangements with hyperscalers, cloud providers, enterprise customers, and strategic partners.
- Draft, review, and negotiate purchase agreements, easements, land options, development agreements, and other real estate documentation.
- Support site acquisition and expansion initiatives across North America.
- Partner with development and commercial teams on new market entries and capacity expansion projects.
- Manage legal risk related to leasing, development, construction, and operational matters.
- Coordinate with external counsel on real estate, regulatory, permitting, zoning, and environmental issues.
- Provide practical legal guidance to business stakeholders to facilitate timely deal execution.
- Develop and improve legal processes, templates, and contracting strategies as the business scales.
Qualifications
- Juris Doctor (JD) from an accredited law school and active bar membership.
- 8+ years of legal experience, with a combination of top-tier law firm and/or in-house experience preferred.
- Significant experience negotiating and drafting commercial real estate agreements and complex lease transactions.
- Direct experience within data centers, digital infrastructure, telecommunications, energy infrastructure, cloud, or hyperscale environments strongly preferred.
- Strong understanding of real estate development, site acquisition, and landlord-tenant matters.
- Experience supporting transactions involving hyperscalers such as AWS, Microsoft, Google, Meta, Oracle, or similar large-scale infrastructure customers is highly desirable.
- Ability to balance legal risk with commercial objectives in a fast-paced growth environment.
- Excellent negotiation, drafting, and stakeholder management skills.
Preferred Experience
- Data center leasing and colocation agreements.
- Hyperscaler customer negotiations.
- Construction and development agreements.
- Power, utility, and infrastructure-related contracts.