Senior Legal Consultant - Land Development & Site Acquisitions

Help ambitious businesses build, scale, and navigate change. Altern8 Legal was built around the belief that ambitious businesses should be able to access exceptional senior legal expertise flexibly, while experienced lawyers should have greater ownership over how, where, and with whom they work. We are partnering with a major international data centre developer and operator seeking a senior lawyer to support land development, site acquisitions, and the broader legal work required to bring strategically important sites through the development lifecycle.

This is a broad, business-facing role sitting at the intersection of real estate, infrastructure, energy, construction, planning, and commercial development. It would suit a senior lawyer who can manage complex transactions, coordinate multiple workstreams, and work confidently with senior commercial and technical stakeholders. The opportunity could be structured as either an interim consulting engagement or a permanent appointment. The client would ideally like someone able to start at relatively short notice.

The role

• You will work closely with the General Counsel and teams across development, investment, construction, power, finance, and operations.
• The work is expected to include:
• Supporting the identification, evaluation, acquisition, and development of new sites
• Advising on land acquisitions, disposals, options, conditional contracts, leases, agreements for lease, easements, and related property arrangements
• Coordinating legal due diligence, title reviews, development constraints, and transaction execution
• Supporting planning, permitting, environmental, and regulatory workstreams
• Advising on access, infrastructure, utilities, grid connections, power supply, water, and other site requirements
• Managing the legal interface between land acquisition, development, construction, financing, and operations
• Supporting joint ventures, investment structures, and other development-related commercial arrangements where required
• Coordinating local counsel and specialist advisers across multiple jurisdictions
• Managing external legal spend, transaction timetables, and competing stakeholder priorities
• Providing clear, commercially focused advice to senior leadership and multidisciplinary project teams

About you

• We would be particularly interested in speaking with lawyers who have:
• At least 10 years’ PQE, or an equivalent level of senior transactional experience
• Significant experience across real estate development, land or site acquisitions, major infrastructure, or complex asset-backed transactions
• The ability to manage transactions involving multiple legal, commercial, technical, and regulatory workstreams
• Experience working closely with development, investment, construction, or operational teams
• Strong commercial judgement and the confidence to advise senior stakeholders
• Experience coordinating external counsel across multiple jurisdictions
• The ability to operate autonomously and quickly establish credibility within an international business
• Direct data centre experience would be particularly valuable, but it is not essential.
• We would also welcome applications from senior lawyers with relevant backgrounds in energy, utilities, power, renewables, infrastructure, logistics, telecommunications, industrial development, commercial property, or other major development environments.
• Experience involving power procurement, grid connections, utilities, planning, permitting, construction, or project finance would be a significant advantage.

We do not expect every applicant to cover every aspect of the role personally, particularly where specialist local advice would ordinarily be required.

Why this opportunity?

The expansion of AI, cloud infrastructure, and digital services is driving unprecedented demand for new data-centre capacity. Delivering that capacity requires lawyers who can understand not only the property transaction, but also how land, power, infrastructure, construction, regulation, and operations come together. This role offers the opportunity to contribute directly to major international developments and become a trusted legal partner to the teams responsible for delivering them.

Working with Altern8 Legal

We work with senior lawyers who want access to genuinely interesting, business-critical work without being constrained by a traditional career model. Depending on the opportunity, our lawyers may work on an interim, fractional, project-based, or longer-term basis. We aim to provide transparency around the work, commercial arrangements, and client expectations, and we stay closely involved throughout each engagement. Joining our network is non-exclusive, and there is no obligation to accept any opportunity that is not right for you. If this sounds like the kind of work you would enjoy, we would be pleased to hear from you. Please apply with your CV or LinkedIn profile.