Counsel for technology companies and fund sponsors.
Our clients are building things that did not exist five years ago. We paper the deals that build AI and digital-asset infrastructure, form funds for sponsors, and serve as outside general counsel.
- Up to $900Mcompute infrastructure fund, sponsor-side
- 200 MWdata-center campus acquisition, buyer-side
- Layer-one protocolmultiyear agreement with a federally chartered bank, developer-side
We build the agreements these businesses run on.
The businesses we work for sell compute capacity on multiyear offtake contracts, put institutional collateral on a blockchain, build funds around hardware that turns over in two to three years and run funded-trader platforms. Their agreements have to hold up when a chartered bank, a construction lender or a regulator reads them.
For AI infrastructure companies, digital-asset businesses, fund sponsors and the platforms bringing new financial products to market, we build the vehicles, paper the transactions and work out the regulatory footing before the deal depends on it. The work runs through the United States, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Singapore and the Gulf.
We also handle the everyday work of technology companies at every stage: formation, financings, commercial and licensing agreements, employment and intellectual property, and outside general counsel. Most of our clients use us for both kinds of work.
Five practice areas.
AI Infrastructure and Applications
The AI stack has three layers, each with its own contracts: the site, its power and its financing at the bottom; the compute agreements in the middle (offtake, capacity, marketplaces, the hardware supply chain); and on top, the companies building with it and the financing, data and IP questions they raise. We work at all three layers, and we form compute infrastructure funds for sponsors.
Digital Assets and Protocols
We work at the institutional end of this market: qualified custody, tri-party collateral, bridges and payment rails, where a chartered bank sits across the table and the questions are who holds what, under whose charter and on what terms. We also do the protocol, ecosystem, token and foundation work that gets a network there, and the terms and compliance programs for the applications built on it.
Fund Formation and Private Securities
A first fund starts as a set of structural decisions: the general partner chain, the management vehicle, 3(c)(1) against 3(c)(7), and the point at which the manager has to register. We build the whole suite to carry to the next fund, so the second one is not papered from scratch. We also do the securities work on private raises for companies: Rule 506(b) or 506(c), investor verification and finder terms.
Emerging Financial Products
We represent funded-trader platforms, trading networks and strategy-tool companies, along with other businesses launching new financial products. The perimeter questions shape how the business can be built: where the fee sits, how the payout is characterized, whose money is at risk and who has discretion over whose account. The documents have to answer them first.
Corporate and Outside General Counsel
For companies that want one senior lawyer rather than a panel: governance, financings, commercial contracts, employment and intellectual property. We also handle the larger transactions: recapitalizations, joint ventures, asset and equity purchases, licensing, capital-introduction agreements and cross-border structuring.
Two document suites, priced before we start.
The fund suite
Every document a first closed-end fund needs, from the private placement memorandum to the subscription documents and Form D, for a fixed fee quoted on the first call and a timetable stated up front.
The funded-trader suite
Challenge terms, trader agreements, the payout framework and the policies around them, built from the platform’s own mechanics, for a fixed fee quoted on the first call.
The terms that decide these deals.
When a compute provider’s largest customer is a GPU marketplace, the service-level schedule is the wrong place to spend negotiating capital. A broker can leave in thirty days while the provider carries a sixty-month colocation commitment, so what matters is the minimum commitment, the prepayment and a term that matches the lease underneath.
When a chartered bank holds collateral that lives on a protocol, the audit representation allocates the loss if the bridge fails. The protocol can accept the bank’s wording only if its core smart contracts have had a full third-party audit, so we settle the audit question before anyone signs.
Fund documents assume assets that hold value, and compute does not: a GPU generation turns over in two to three years against a five-year fund term. The investment period, recycling and waterfall have to be rebuilt around that, with the financing at the SPV, non-recourse, so the fund never carries the residual.
One lawyer. The whole bench.
A solo practice is a constraint only if the lawyer works alone.
Watkins Legal runs matters with a standing network of specialist counsel, from other solo practitioners and mid-size firms to large firms where the work demands them. It also has established relationships with offshore counsel in the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands and with firms in Asia and Canada. You get one senior lawyer who owns the matter end to end and assembles exactly the depth each piece requires, rather than paying a firm’s overhead to keep every specialty on the payroll.
Kurt Watkins
Founder, Watkins Legal
Kurt has practiced since 2014, working at the front edge of new technology and building the agreements and structures that technology companies and fund sponsors need in order to operate.
Before founding Watkins Legal in 2018, he practiced at a national firm in New York.
Five representative matters.
Buyer-side acquisition of a two-hundred-megawatt data-center campus at $55 million, including $47 million of negotiated seller financing and the lien subordination that kept the site financeable for a construction lender.
Company-side counsel to the developer of a major layer-one blockchain on a multiyear agreement with a federally chartered digital-asset bank, covering qualified-custody collateral and tri-party collateral management.
Sponsor-side documentation suite for an AI compute infrastructure fund raising up to $900 million: a Rule 506(c) offering to qualified purchasers under Section 3(c)(7), a whole-fund European waterfall with clawback, and an investment manager positioned for SEC registration.
Complete legal suite for a funded-trader proprietary trading platform, covering the challenge terms, trader agreements and payout framework, with an offshore restructuring through Cayman and British Virgin Islands vehicles.
Series A amended and restated certificate of incorporation and related reorganization for a venture-backed software company, including a British Virgin Islands incorporation.
The full list, grouped by practice, is on the Selected Work page.
What the matters taught us.
The License That Can Hold Up the Sale of Your Company
September 2026Seller Financing on a Data-Center Site Will Block Your Construction Lender
Publishing nextThe full slate, with what each piece argues, is on the Writing page.
Start a conversation.
Tell us what you are building and where you are in it. We will tell you plainly whether this is the right firm for the work, and who to talk to if it is not.
Burbank, California 91505
New York, New York 10016