Jeffry W.
Gray
- Position
- Partner
- Office
- Baton Rouge
Jeff Gray is a senior partner in the Corporate Practice Group. He guides clients through complex commercial real estate transactions and, as vice president of Baronne Title Inc., the firm’s commercial title insurance agency, helps insure them.
For more than 40 years, Jeff has represented developers, lenders, investors, retailers, and industrial and energy companies in all types of commercial transactions. A member of the firm’s real estate team, he handles the acquisition, disposition, development, financing, leasing, and operation of commercial, industrial, retail, and energy-related properties throughout the United States at virtually every stage of the real estate life cycle, from site selection through expansion and sale. Jeff also advises on easements and servitudes, access rights, and economic development incentives.
Many of Jeff’s client relationships are measured in decades. He has served as lead counsel and relationship partner for national and regional clients with substantial real estate portfolios, coordinating multidisciplinary legal teams across multiple jurisdictions on matters ranging from leasing programs to operational real estate issues. Among other engagements, Jeff was lead outside counsel to a national discount retailer in the acquisition of land for the development of more than 300 stores in Louisiana across a 30-year period, and he has handled multi-site development programs for restaurant and drugstore chains.
A significant portion of Jeff’s practice is devoted to the energy and industrial sectors. He represents clients in renewable energy and infrastructure projects, including utility-scale solar developments and transportation and logistics assets, as well as in refinery, petrochemical, and manufacturing facilities and in complex financings that combine real estate, title, and development issues. His current work builds on a long record of major industrial transactions, among them the acquisition of a 189,000-barrel-per-day refinery outside New Orleans and the acquisition of a major power plant and more than 40 substations serving nine electric cooperatives.
Through Baronne Title, Jeff can carry a transaction from negotiation to title policy. As the agency’s vice president, he has played a key role in expanding the firm’s title insurance capabilities throughout its footprint. Jeff handles title examinations and survey matters; structures and underwrites title insurance solutions for large-scale commercial, industrial, renewable energy, and infrastructure projects; and works with title insurers, lenders, and owners to resolve the title, survey, underwriting, access, and mineral issues that arise in major projects, including those involving large multi-site portfolios.
Jeff has previously served as head of the firm’s Baton Rouge office. He is an active member of the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC), has held leadership positions within the organization, and regularly participates in industry conferences and events focused on retail real estate, development, and emerging trends. Jeff has been recognized annually by Chambers USA since 2013 for his work in Louisiana real estate.
Noteworthy
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