Assistant General Counsel, Partner, Data Center Development & Real Estate

Job Description

Job Description

ABOUT THE ROLE

The Assistant General Counsel of Real Estate and Development role serves as the company's lead lawyer for real estate development, construction, financing and operations related to its data center portfolio.  This role holds direct legal ownership over assigned powered-land development sites from early-stage selection through commercialization and delivery of a fully operational data center. Partnering daily with our development, operations, asset management and strategic finance teams, you will drive the legal strategy across all development phases with a balanced focus on speed, risk management, and absolute execution certainty. You will lead high-stakes negotiations for site acquisition, complex construction and development agreements, data center leasing agreements, joint venture agreements and sophisticated financing.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive legal strategy and maintain ownership of legal matters across all data center development phases, serving as the central legal point for the deal team.
• Work closely with internal stakeholders, including development, operations, asset management and strategic finance teams, to align legal strategies with the company's business goals and project timelines.
• Draft, review, and negotiate complex real estate agreements, including purchase and sale agreements, leases, joint venture agreements, loan documents, construction contracts, purchase options, easements, and access agreements.
• Supervise site diligence workstreams across title, survey, environmental, geotech, and zoning, coordinating directly with the development team and internal/external legal team members.
• Lead and support all legal matters related to project financing and debt raises.
• Provide legal counsel across all phases of data center construction, including design, execution, construction, construction management and commissioning.
• Draft, review, and negotiate complex construction contracts including design build agreements and guaranteed maximum price contracts.
• Manage legal matters related to construction claims, liens, delays, defects, and site safety compliance.
• Direct outside counsel and manage project legal budgets
• Invest in training, mentoring, and scaling of the legal counsel and paralegal support resources.

ABOUT YOU

• You have a rigorous, detail-oriented approach to reviewing title, survey, environmental, and zoning reports for large-scale infrastructure or energy projects.
• You excel at managing high-volume document workflows, tracking critical deadlines, and maintaining strict version control across multiple simultaneous site acquisitions.
• You are a strategic thinker with a practical, business-oriented approach to legal issues.
• You are comfortable working directly with non-legal teams and can translate complex legal issues into clear guidance that helps inform commercial decisions. 
• You thrive in fast-paced, deal-intensive environments and take ownership of your workstreams from first draft through closing. 

Qualifications

• Active license to practice law in at least one U.S. State and a member in good standing of one U.S. Bar.
• Minimum of 10 years of legal experience, with a significant portion in commercial real estate development, construction, and/or data center industries. In-house experience strongly preferred.
• Expertise in complex commercial real estate development transactions including joint ventures, sophisticated project finance transactions, leasing and construction.
• Excellent negotiation, drafting, and communication (written and verbal) skills.
• Familiarity with data center specific legal issues, including triple net data center leases, colocation agreements and SLAs, is highly desirable.
• Strategic thinker with a practical, business-oriented approach to legal issues.
• Ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously in a fast-paced environment.

ABOUT THE WORK ENVIRONMENT

This role is in office at our corporate headquarters in the Brickell area of Miami, Florida. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.