Chief Legal Officer

Our client is a Los Angeles-based, vertically integrated real estate development and private equity firm.

The Role

We are seeking a Chief Legal Officer to build and lead the legal function for this platform. This is a newly created, ground-floor in-house legal leadership role reporting directly into executive leadership, with broad exposure across development, capital markets, EB-5 immigration-linked finance, construction, and corporate operations. The successful candidate will serve as principal legal advisor across the enterprise, managing outside counsel, structuring transactions, and building legal infrastructure and governance as the platform scales.

What You Will Own

• Serve as principal legal advisor to the CEO and executive leadership across all entities and subsidiaries within the platform.
• Lead legal strategy and execution for real estate acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures, and development transactions, including purchase and sale agreements, development agreements, and operating agreements.
• Structure and negotiate financing transactions across the platform’s capital stack, including construction loans, permanent financing, mezzanine and preferred equity, and fund-level financing arrangements.
• Provide legal oversight of the firm’s EB-5 program, including Regional Center sponsorship, offering documents, investor agreements, USCIS compliance, and coordination with immigration counsel on EB-5 capital raises and investor repayment structures.
• Oversee legal matters for the firm’s construction and general contracting operations, including construction contracts, subcontractor agreements, lien matters, and risk allocation.
• Support the firm’s insurance platform (captive and brokerage) on formation, licensing, and regulatory matters in coordination with insurance leadership and outside specialists.
• Manage corporate governance, entity formation and maintenance, and compliance across the holding company and its subsidiaries.
• Source, manage, and oversee outside counsel across transactional, regulatory, immigration, tax, and litigation matters, including budgeting and scope management.
• Build out internal legal infrastructure, including contract templates, approval workflows, governance tracking, and document management, as the legal function scales from a single in-house seat into a broader team.
• Advise on employment matters, vendor and commercial contracting, and general corporate risk management.
• Lead responses to lender, investor, and regulatory diligence, including entity records, organizational documents, and transaction closing materials.

What You Bring

• J.D. and active bar admission (California admission strongly preferred).
• 12+ years of legal experience, including significant experience in commercial real estate transactions (acquisitions, development, financing, joint ventures).
• Experience serving as in-house counsel to a real estate development, investment, or operating platform, ideally as sole or lead counsel.
• Direct experience with EB-5 financing structures, Regional Center compliance, or related immigration-linked capital raising, or strong adjacent experience in fund formation and securities work with the ability to ramp quickly.
• Strong drafting, negotiation, and business judgment, with the ability to advise senior executives and ownership directly.
• Demonstrated ability to independently manage a high volume of complex, concurrent transactions in a fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment.