Cooley has launched an infrastructure, energy and real estate group with the hire of Baker Botts partner Mona Dajani in New York as co-chair.
Dajani served as global co-chair of Baker Botts’ energy, infrastructure and hydrogen practice, having joined the firm in 2023 following similar energy leadership roles at A&O Shearman and Pillsbury.
Cooley said Dajani would help advance its strategy to offer a “fully integrated, multichannel infrastructure platform”. Her hire follows John Goldman joining earlier this year in New York from Kirkland & Ellis, where he led its corporate real estate team.
“Mona adds invaluable expertise to our platform,” said Cooley’s CEO, Rachel Proffitt. “The infrastructure market is converging where our clients are focused: on complex, capital‑intensive infrastructure projects driven by energy, data, AI and digital transformation. We’ll continue to invest in this space as part of our ambition to build a destination practice for the most capital-intensive infrastructure and energy work.”
The new practice spans renewable energy and storage development, data centre and digital infrastructure, conventional power generation and grid interconnection as well as project finance, M&A and the deal structures at the intersection of AI and energy.
Dajani will co-chair the practice alongside Washington DC-based Michelle Schulman, a longtime Cooley partner who previously led its real estate practice.
Dajani, who is dual-qualified in the US and England and Wales, brings 25 years of experience advising on energy and infrastructure projects, with a practice spanning project finance and development, M&A, finance and tax equity.
Chambers notes she is “well versed in the project financing of renewable assets such as wind, solar and battery storage”, with her past work including representing Dutch pension manager APG in its purchase of a major stake in the $1.2bn Gemini project, one of the largest solar projects in the US. She also advised EV fleet charging specialist TeraWatt in raising more than $1bn in financing for the buildout of electric fleet charging centres across the US.
Dajani wrote on LinkedIn that her move to Cooley was “a deliberate decision shaped by where the market is going”.
She added: “Across power, renewables, storage and electrification, the system is being reconfigured in real time. Capital is moving toward scale, resilience and integrated platforms, and that is changing how transactions are structured and how risk is assessed.
“The clients leading in this space are working with teams that can see across the full platform. Cooley stood out for exactly that alignment at the intersection of capital, infrastructure and innovation, with a genuinely intensive collaborative approach.”
Dajani’s hire follows a record 2025 for Cooley, with the firm growing revenue 10.3% to $2.4bn and profit per equity partner 18.3% to $4.6m. Revenue per lawyer rose 11.5% to $1.8m.
Mona Dajani is the general editor of a forthcoming Law Over Borders guide to energy law. For further details, email: [email protected]. Click here for more details about Global Legal Post's Law Over Borders guides.
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