Michelle Kelban

Practice Areas

Michelle Kelban is a real estate partner in the New York office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP. She advises clients on a range of complex and prominent real estate transactions, including private capital raising and financing, acquisitions, joint venture recapitalizations, and workouts and restructurings.

Nationally recognized as a leading real estate lawyer, Michelle serves a variety of key market players, including private equity firms, US and foreign investors, institutional lenders, and family offices. She leverages her broad-based experience to help clients successfully navigate all types of real estate transactions across an array of asset classes. Michelle brings particular experience in highly structured and multifaceted deals involving bespoke structures.

Michelle regularly advises on transactions involving:

- Asset and entity-level acquisitions and dispositions in respect of real estate based operating businesses

- Single asset and multiple property portfolio financings for a range of property types and performing and non-performing loan assets

- Mezzanine financings, preferred equity structures, equity investments, joint ventures, and equity recapitalizations

- Workouts, restructurings, and distressed and performing loan sales

- Foreign investors with respect to all types of in-bound US acquisitions, joint ventures, and financings

- Mergers and acquisitions for real estate-based businesses

Michelle is actively involved in pro bono and community service initiatives. She has provided counsel to numerous nonprofit organizations, including Dance Theatre of Harlem and the Girls Global Academy (GGA). She serves as a visionary for Beat the Streets, an organization focusing on empowering local leaders and supplying youth development programs through the sport of wrestling. Michelle is also a member of the Beacon Group, which provides grants to local New York organizations supporting underserved populations.

In 2020, Michelle was elected to the American College of Real Estate Lawyers, an invitation-only organization comprising leading real estate lawyers across the US.

Personal

The George Washington University Law School, J.D., with Highest Honors, 2000, Order of the Coif; New York University, B.A., magna cum laude, 1997, with Honors