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Michael Rechtin

Partner, Real Estate Practice at Latham & Watkins LLP

Chicago, Illinois, USA

MR
Why they matter

One of a handful of elite data center leasing lawyers in the US, with deep hyperscaler lease, JV, and financing experience across nearly every major digital infrastructure sponsor.

Background

Michael Rechtin is a Partner in the Real Estate Practice and a member of the interdisciplinary Data Center Team at Latham & Watkins LLP in Chicago, which he joined in August 2025 from DLA Piper. He holds a JD (cum laude) from Notre Dame Law School and a BS from MIT, and has spent over 30 years advising on complex real estate and IT contracting transactions. He is widely regarded as one of the top data center leasing lawyers in the US, representing developers, private equity firms, and capital providers on leasing, joint ventures, acquisitions, dispositions, development, and financing of data center and digital infrastructure assets.

Notable deals

  • 2024
    Advised Edged Energy as borrower/developer on an $800 million hybrid project finance/real estate borrowing-base construction loan across seven US data center sites
  • 2024
    Advised StratCap Data Centers and HMC Capital on the $712 million purchase of a turnkey data center under construction and fully leased to a hyperscaler in Elk Grove Village, IL
  • 2024
    Advised Blackstone on its joint venture investment in Digital Realty hyperscale data center developments across Europe and Northern Virginia
  • 2025
    Advised Chirisa and Machine Investments on two build-to-suit turnkey leases with CoreWeave for up to 375 MW each

Call-prep brief

Background

  • Partner, Real Estate Practice & Data Center Team, Latham & Watkins (Chicago); joined Aug 2025 from DLA Piper
  • 30+ years at the intersection of real estate and IT/telecom contracting; JD Notre Dame, BS MIT
  • Ranked in Chambers USA (Illinois Real Estate) and named a Best Lawyers "Lawyer of the Year" for Privacy & Data Security

Current focus

  • Hyperscaler leasing (turnkey, powered shell, MSA structures), JV formation, and construction/project financing for data center campuses
  • Active on AI-driven demand: chip financing (e.g., $30B AI chipset equipment lease), power procurement, and quantum computing campus leases

What he cares about

  • Integrated real estate + infrastructure + power deal structuring, not siloed real estate work
  • Being at the "top of the market" on leasing precedent and market terms as deal sizes and power draws scale

Recent moves

  • Move to Latham (Aug 2025) was explicitly framed around needing an integrated global platform to serve massive-power-requirement data center clients — signals he's chasing bigger, cross-border mandates

Sensitivities

  • Recently changed firms; be mindful of client conflicts/non-competes tied to former DLA Piper matters (Harrison Street, Edged Energy, StratCap, etc.)
  • Confidentiality around unclosed matters (e.g., Fleet's Reno AI campus, Quantum Corridor in Hammond, IN)

Questions to ask

  1. Which of his existing hyperscaler/developer relationships (Edged, Harrison Street, Intersect Power, StratCap) transferred with him to Latham, and which stayed at DLA Piper?
  2. How is he seeing lease structures evolve for 500MW–1GW+ AI campuses versus traditional colocation?
  3. What power procurement bottlenecks is he seeing block deals from closing right now?

Outreach draft

Subject
Data center leasing expertise — quick call?
Hi Michael, I came across your move to Latham & Watkins and your track record advising on some of the largest hyperscaler leases and data center financings in the market — the Edged Energy construction facility and the StratCap/HMC Elk Grove Village acquisition in particular caught our attention. We're a private equity team actively evaluating opportunities in data center colocation and digital infrastructure, and we'd value your perspective on current leasing structures, power procurement constraints, and where you see the most attractive risk-adjusted deals right now. Would you have 20 minutes in the next couple of weeks for a call? Happy to work around your schedule. Best, [Placeholder Name]

Sources