Jennifer H. Burnett

About us: Kaleo Legal is a regional firm, based out of Virginia Beach and Richmond, consisting of seventeen attorneys and support staff. Kaleo Legal primarily consists of attorneys who previously served at an AMLAW 200 firm or as in-house counsel at public companies. Most of our attorneys have been named in either Chambers USA or Best Lawyers, and our attorneys have also been named to Virginia Legal Elite and Virginia Super Lawyers. Our firm is listed in Best Law Firms. Together we form a talented, experienced group of attorneys who provide each of our clients with extraordinary levels of attention, responsiveness, and expertise. We have a strict policy of low overhead and operate on a largely virtual basis, which allows us to provide this highest level of legal service at substantially discounted prices compared to other firms providing commensurate levels of quality representation.

We aim to become an extension of our client’s in-house departments, expanding their capacity in a cost-effective manner with seasoned counsel, and without adding headcount to the company’s payroll. We take a team approach to servicing our clients, designating the most experienced attorneys based on the type of assignment. We provide our clients direct access to each member of the firm whenever they need us. Our primary objective is to make our client’s jobs easier, reduce their load, and allow them to achieve their legal and business objectives quickly and successfully.

As a team, the attorneys at Kaleo Legal have experience representing clients in virtually every aspect of commercial and corporate law, including commercial transactions, employment law, and litigation, corporation organization and governance, mergers and acquisitions, complex civil litigation, intellectual property (both transactional and litigation, including patent prosecution), software licensing, food and consumer products law, and private and public securities law. We also focus on litigation management and early dispute resolution, serving the function of a seasoned general counsel orchestrating a firm’s response to legal challenges and helping make cost-effective defense and settlement efforts that align with our client’s business goals.

Services: Except for certain litigation matters where we serve as counsel of record, we have largely dispensed with the billable hour, as we have found that it does not properly align with the interests of our clients and our firm. We provide a variety of alternative fee arrangements to meet the needs of our clients, but we perform most of our work on a flat project-based fee arrangement or on a monthly subscription, with fee determinations based on the scope of the engagement and adjusted prospectively when the firm and the client determine that the scope has changed. Our engagements range from just a few hours per month to more full-time services requiring the attention of multiple attorneys each day.

Jennifer Burnett’s practice focuses primarily on mergers and acquisitions, commercial real estate, including commercial leasing, commercial real estate development, and the purchase and sale of commercial real estate, and general business and commercial law and related transactions, including contract negotiations, entity formation, corporate governance, financings, commercial loans, credit facilities, and capital raising.  She advises and assists a diverse client base on a wide range of matters within her practice areas, and particularly enjoys being an integral part of her client’s team, providing them with trusted legal and business counsel through each life cycle of their business.  Jennifer has considerable expertise in mergers and acquisitions deal strategy and related contract drafting and negotiations, in drafting and negotiating complex commercial leases, and in navigating her clients through the purchase and sale of businesses, interests related thereto, and commercial real estate.

After graduating from Wake Forest University School of Law in 2008, she began her career as an attorney with Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, LLP (now Womble Bond Dickinson), practicing in their Greensboro, NC office.  Before joining Kaleo Legal in November 2021, Jennifer was a Shareholder with the firm of Clement & Wheatley, located in Danville, VA.  Prior to law school, Jennifer was a Corporate & Securities paralegal for 10 years, working in the in-house legal departments of Burlington Industries, Inc. and VF Corporation, and with the law firm of Womble Carlyle.  She graduated magna cum laude from Meredith College in 1994.