Leading Digital Infrastructure Lawyer Kemal Hawa Joins Kirkland & Ellis
Kirkland & Ellis announced today that Kemal Hawa has joined the Firm as a partner in the Corporate Practice Group with a focus on digital infrastructure.
“Kemal is an industry-leading lawyer with significant experience on transactions involving data centers and digital infrastructure globally, and in particular, the complex commercial agreements related to those transactions,” said Jon A. Ballis, Chairman of Kirkland’s Executive Committee. “He adds another dimension to our leading team in this high-growth area, and we’re excited to welcome him to Kirkland.”
Mr. Hawa counsels clients in complex transactions across the digital infrastructure and telecommunications space and has extensive experience providing advice on commercial agreements. He has advised some of the world’s largest private equity firms, infrastructure funds, real estate investors and lenders, as well as data center operators, telecommunications carriers, tower companies, cloud providers, fiber providers, satellite companies, equipment manufacturers and electric utilities on mergers and acquisitions, financing arrangements, joint ventures and development projects. Additionally, he has guided negotiations for data center leases, telecommunications master service agreements, licensing deals and other commercial transactions.
“I am excited to join Kirkland and get to work with my new colleagues on our clients’ most significant digital infrastructure transactions,” said Mr. Hawa. “This is a rapidly growing field that requires multidisciplinary capabilities. Kirkland has all the key pieces to execute on these important transactions and a team-first approach that was appealing to me.”
Mr. Hawa joins from Greenberg Traurig where he was a partner and served as the co-chair of the Digital Infrastructure, Data Center and Cloud Computing Industry Group. He has been recognized across the industry as a leading attorney in the sector. In 2023, he was named to Capacity Media’s “Power 100” list of the 100 most influential people in the global digital infrastructure sector, and he was voted “TMT M&A Lawyer of the Year” by a panel of judges organized by TMT Finance.
