Laurie C. Nelson

Laurie C. Nelson, counsel in Ropes & Gray's real estate investments & transactions group since 2009, focuses her practice on commercial leasing for landlords and tenants in the financial services, life sciences, retail and manufacturing sectors, traditional and non-traditional real estate finance transactions, acquisitions and dispositions, and counseling not-for-profit entities in a wide variety of real estate matters.

Ms. Nelson has over 40 years of experience representing domestic and international clients in complex acquisition, development, and financing transactions in the office, retail and hospitality sectors, and is expert in in New York and national office, retail, industrial and data center leasing. Prior to joining Ropes & Gray, she spent 12 years as a senior attorney with Clifford Chance US LLP. In 2017, Ms. Nelson counseled a consortium of investors in a potential acquisition of the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan and has in the past served as US counsel to the Italian hotel company and developer The Statuto Group. She represented The Hearst Corporation in connection with the disposition of the Argonaut, a midtown Manhattan office building through a $185mm long-term net lease. She recently advised a national financial institution in its lease of over 500,000 square feet at the new One Congress tower in Boston, and for many years has represented Hariri Interests in all its US real estate investments, including the acquisition, development and financing of trophy office properties in Houston. Ms. Nelson maintains an active leasing practice advising tenants in office, retail, industrial, warehouse and data center leases in New York and nationally.  She also actively represents numerous not-for-profit organizations in the education and health care spaces. Ms. Nelson has been pro bono counsel to NYC Medics, a volunteer organization that rapidly deploys mobile medical teams to remote areas of disaster zones and humanitarian emergencies, since the organization’s founding in 2005. She served as chair of Ropes & Gray’s real estate training committee from 2011 until 2019, and in 2019 assumed leadership of Ropes & Gray’s real estate knowledge management initiative. In 2022, Ms. Nelson received Ropes & Gray’s Deborah Levi Award for Outstanding Pro Bono Service.

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