Willkie continues its Dallas office buildout with the addition this week of a data center and infrastructure team from Akerman led by James Grice.
Joining Grice are partners Bruce ‘Eddie’ Lowry, Michael McKinley, and Thu Pham. Grice will chair Willkie’s Digital Infrastructure and Data Center practice.
“The data center sector is very much tied to energy, and that was a big driver [in joining Willkie],” said Grice, who also celebrated his birthday on Monday and welcomed a new grandchild in August. “The ability to serve clients all the way through the continuum is very valuable.”
Grice highlighted the firm’s power and renewable energy group, led by Eric Pogue, calling it “best in class.” Pogue said the firm has built out the power practice over the last five years, and when factoring in Willkie’s “premiere corporate and finance offerings,” the firm has a bench of 150-plus lawyers that contribute to digital infrastructure projects.
“Jim’s team is part of that story,” said Pogue, who is based in New York. “It is a formidable practice across the firm.”
Grice said his practice is “all data centers all the time.” His team handles buy and sell transactions, leasing, development and state and local tax matters. They have handled projects for Switch, CoreWeave, Stream, and Compass Datacenters.
As the data center asset class as “come into its own” and the size of deals has gotten so big, Grice says there is a real challenge of capital management throughout a project – from debt financing to structured financing and capital markets. Willkie’s platform is “well-suited” to meet this challenge, he said.
Holt Foster, Willkie’s Dallas office managing partner, said adding this team “marks another important milestone in Willkie’s ongoing growth in and commitment to the Dallas market.”
The firm brought on its first Texas litigators last month, Grant Schmidt and Andrew Bean from Hilgers.