Kirkland & Ellis announced the launch of its integrated Real Assets Practice Group, combining the firm’s real estate, infrastructure, energy and minerals/mining practices into a unified platform aligned with evolving client needs and industry trends. The newly formed group includes more than 600 lawyers across Kirkland’s global offices.
The firm said the move reflects increasing convergence across real estate, infrastructure, energy and digital assets, particularly as clients pursue more sophisticated investment and development strategies involving long-term capital deployment, regulatory complexity and large-scale stakeholder coordination.
According to Kirkland, surging demand for digital infrastructure and the growing integration of asset classes across client portfolios were major factors behind formalizing the group under the “real assets” umbrella. The firm noted that its lawyers have already been collaborating across these disciplines for years.
In 2025, Kirkland advised on more than 615 real assets transactions valued at approximately $650 billion. The firm highlighted several marquee transactions, including Brookfield Infrastructure Partners’ $30 billion joint venture with Intel to fund semiconductor fabrication facilities in Arizona, GLP’s $18.7 billion sale of its U.S. logistics business to Blackstone, and Constellation Energy’s $26.6 billion acquisition of Calpine.
Kirkland also emphasized its leadership in data center and digital infrastructure transactions, noting that its lawyers advised more than 140 sponsors and developers on over 450 data center transactions during the past five years. In 2025 alone, the firm worked on more than $169 billion in data center-related M&A and joint venture transactions and more than $81 billion in related financings.
Recent digital infrastructure transactions included AI Infrastructure Partnership, MGX and BlackRock’s Global Infrastructure Partners in the $40 billion acquisition of Aligned Data Centers, a consortium of Global Infrastructure Partners and EQT in the $33.4 billion acquisition of AES, and Blue Owl Capital’s $27 billion joint venture with Meta Platforms to develop a data center campus in Louisiana.
The firm said the integrated group will provide clients with coordinated advice across capital raising, structuring, financing, development and governance matters, spanning sectors such as digital infrastructure, power generation, logistics, mining and real estate private equity.
Kirkland also noted its continued focus on real estate private equity, sponsor-led recapitalizations, restructurings, borrower and lender financings, and portfolio acquisitions as part of the expanded real assets platform.
KEY QUOTES:
“We’ve been seeing clients integrate real estate, infrastructure, energy and digital assets in increasingly sophisticated ways. Our teams already have been operating collaboratively across these areas for the past few years, but now bringing these practices together under the “real assets” umbrella will formalize our approach — highly coordinated advice across capital raising, structuring, financing, development and governance — particularly for assets with long time horizons, regulatory considerations and complex stakeholder dynamics.”
Jon A. Ballis, Chairman Of Kirkland’s Executive Committee
“Kirkland has always adopted a team approach to serve our clients and that is exactly the approach we continue to take now within real assets – it is the best way to create meaningful value for our clients.”
Andrew Calder, Member Of Kirkland’s Executive Committee
“Each transaction presents novel issues, and the landscape is constantly changing, which really necessitates having experts in all of the areas – M&A, real estate, financing, power, project development, regulatory, intellectual property, funds and more – under one roof and working together in total lockstep to ensure advice to our clients is aligned to how the market continues to mature.”
John Pitts, Kirkland Energy And Infrastructure Partner And Member Of The Firm’s Executive Committee
“Meeting clients where they are is core to how Kirkland operates across market cycles, asset classes and deal structures. Kirkland has been involved at every stage of the growth of real estate private equity and the digital infrastructure evolution. Integrating our real assets offering is a natural next step in continuing to deliver cutting-edge solutions as the industry continues to grow.”
Kevin Ehrhart, Kirkland Real Estate Partner
