Michelle McAtee

Michelle McAtee is the Co-Chair of Jenner & Block’s Real Estate and Transactions Practice and Real Estate and Hospitality Practice. She guides clients through commercial loan negotiations, capital market transactions, joint venture structuring, restructurings and workouts, as well as extensive leasing work.

Notable matters include representing a Northern California real estate developer and investor on the financing, acquisition, and development of a multi-hundred-million-dollar project. She also completed major transactions, loan assumptions and large portfolio deals for InvenTrust Properties, a grocery store-anchored REIT.

McAtee was a founding member of Jenner’s Mothers’ Circle and runs the Caregivers Affinity Group. She has served on the firm’s hiring committee, diversity committee, pro bono committee, and Women’s Forum, and actively mentors junior lawyers. She is a former chair of the Chicago Bar Association Real Property Law Committee and an active member of CREW Chicago.

She is outside counsel with Housing Forward. Additionally, she has provided pro bono counsel on multiple real estate transactions supporting community development for The Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago.

GlobeSt/Real Estate Forum named McAtee its Woman of the Year and among its Women of Influence. She has been dubbed a Real Estate/Construction Law Trailblazer by the National Law Journal, honored as one of Chicago’s Power Women in Real Estate by Bisnow, and repeatedly recognized by the Illinois Real Estate Journal as one of the state’s leading women in commercial real estate.

These are some of the reasons why Michelle McAtee received Connect CRE’s 2025 Chicago & Midwest Lawyers in Real Estate Award. The award celebrates real estate attorneys who have distinguished themselves in their practice and the larger community.