Everyone hates data centers. Lawyers love them

Jason Morris spent years helping housing, office and industrial developers cut through red tape and NIMBYs around Phoenix. Occasionally, the land-use attorney advised data center builders.

Data center projects were slam dunks. Cities welcomed them because they resembled office buildings and didn’t bring much traffic. The Phoenix region grew into a data center hub powering the artificial intelligence boom.

Cue the backlash, and call the lawyers.

Morris now spends about 70% of his time on data center projects. It used to be 10%.

It seems impossible to escape the data center fight in America. It dominates Facebook feeds, town council meetings and midterm election ads. Construction on data centers is propping up the economy and sucking up trillions in investments.

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Data centers have also created a lucrative new line of business for lawyers.

On one side, plaintiffs’ lawyers are working with local communities and advocacy groups to throw up legal obstacles to bog down development. More than 300 jurisdictions in 44 states have enacted moratoriums against data centers.

On the other, lawyers repping data center builders and investors are responding to growing litigation over land use, the environment and noise.

Morris is defending data center developers, operators and tech companies in lawsuits over noise and water consumption. He’s also battling with regulators to approve permits for the buildout. It’s complicated work, and city officials have grown more hostile. Hyperscale data centers for AI are larger than earlier data centers and use enormous amounts of power and water. Cities are weighing tradeoffs that come with data centers .

“These cases are my single most difficult. Every legal tool is being used,” he said.

But the legal quagmire around data centers adds up to lot of billable hours.

Big firms such as Latham & Watkins, Perkins Coie and WilmerHale are promoting their white-glove services to data center clients on their websites. And companies are throwing money at partners with experience handling data center projects.

“When you start to see law firms large and small putting data centers on their websites, it tells you everything you need to know about the potential for business,” Morris said.

Larger firms have also formed data center and digital infrastructure teams with a range of lawyers specializing in energy, regulatory and real estate law. Around one-third of large law firms now have a team or practice group specializing in data centers, according to a Bloomberg Law survey released in June.

Energy lawyers are in particularly high demand because of data centers’ enormous power needs.

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Clean energy projects were the major focus of the energy industry during the Biden administration. But they have more recently been eclipsed by the data center buildout, said Tyler O’Connor, an energy litigator at Crowell & Moring in Washington, DC. He advises data center developers on energy compliance and infrastructure.

“Even when we’re not working for those clients, almost all of the work we do now is informed by the emergence of data centers,” he said.

Mass tort lawyers are also offering up help on social media to people who live near data centers and filing class action lawsuits against operators.

“When these facilities started popping up everywhere, we were contacted by people who were upset,” said Laura Sheets, an attorney in Detroit who recently filed one of the country’s first nuisance cases against a data center operator in Michigan. These claims are a “natural fit” for her practice.

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Sheets has brought four nuisance complaints against data centers in four states and is preparing others. The suits say continuous noise from data centers’ cooling systems and power generators is substantially interfering with local neighbors’ use and enjoyment of their property — a legal standard for proving a private nuisance. They also allege that data centers are driving down local property values.

The case against data centers follows a legal playbook often used against large industrial facilities.

Courts will apply the same set of laws used to address environmental and land use questions to data centers, said Michael Pollack, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law who focuses on land use law.

Some of the lucrative work around data centers may eventually dry up.

If lawsuits succeed in slowing development, the data center industry may lobby Congress to pass legislation that pre-empts municipalities from blocking new construction. That could stop the flood of local lawsuits against data centers.

After a wave of local communities blocked wireless cell phone towers in the 1990s, Congress made it harder for municipalities to ban antennas or towers for wireless service in the Telecommunications Act of 1996.

“Companies may look to states or Congress to pass laws that give them a trump card,” Pollack said.

杰森·莫里斯多年来一直帮助菲尼克斯地区的住宅、办公和工业开发商克服繁琐的审批程序和邻避效应。这位土地使用律师偶尔也会为数据中心建设者提供咨询。

数据中心项目大获成功。城市对它们趋之若鹜，因为它们外观与办公楼无异，而且不会带来太多交通拥堵。凤凰城地区发展成为数据中心枢纽，为人工智能的蓬勃发展提供了动力。

接下来肯定会引发强烈反弹，然后赶紧联系律师。

莫里斯现在将大约70%的时间投入到数据中心项目上。而以前这个比例只有10%。

在美国，似乎根本无法摆脱数据中心之争。它充斥着Facebook动态、市政会议和中期选举广告。数据中心的建设支撑着经济，并吸纳了数万亿美元的投资。

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数据中心也为律师们创造了一项利润丰厚的新业务。

一方面，原告律师正与当地社区和倡导团体合作，设置法律障碍以阻碍开发。44个州的300多个司法管辖区已颁布针对数据中心的禁令。

另一方面，代表数据中心建设者和投资者的律师们正在应对日益增多的有关土地使用、环境和噪音的诉讼。

莫里斯正在为数据中心开发商、运营商和科技公司辩护，应对有关噪音和用水量的诉讼。他还与监管机构周旋，争取批准数据中心建设的许可证。这是一项复杂的工作，而且市政官员的态度也越来越敌对。用于人工智能的超大规模数据中心比以往的数据中心规模更大，耗电量和耗水量也更大。各城市正在权衡数据中心带来的各种利弊。

“这些案件是我遇到的最棘手的案子。我们已经动用了所有法律手段，”他说。

但围绕数据中心的法律纠纷会耗费大量计费工时。

像 Latham & Watkins、Perkins Coie 和 WilmerHale 这样的大型公司正在其网站上向数据中心客户推广他们的高端服务。而各公司也纷纷斥巨资与拥有数据中心项目经验的合作伙伴洽谈合作。

莫里斯说：“当你看到大大小小的律师事务所开始在他们的网站上设立数据中心时，这就足以说明这其中的商业潜力了。”

规模较大的律师事务所也组建了数据中心和数字基础设施团队，团队成员包括能源、监管和房地产法等领域的律师。彭博法律6月份发布的一项调查显示，目前约有三分之一的大型律师事务所设有专门从事数据中心业务的团队或业务组。

由于数据中心巨大的电力需求，能源律师的需求量尤其高。

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拜登执政期间，清洁能源项目是能源行业的重点。但华盛顿特区 Crowell & Moring 律师事务所的能源诉讼律师泰勒·奥康纳表示，近年来，数据中心建设的兴起使清洁能源项目黯然失色。奥康纳为数据中心开发商提供能源合规和基础设施方面的咨询服务。

他说：“即使我们不为这些客户工作，我们现在所做的几乎所有工作也都受到数据中心兴起的影响。”

一些大规模侵权诉讼律师也在社交媒体上向居住在数据中心附近的人们提供帮助，并对运营商提起集体诉讼。

“当这些设施如雨后春笋般涌现时，我们接到了许多不满者的投诉，”底特律律师劳拉·希茨说道。她最近在密歇根州对一家数据中心运营商提起了美国首批扰民诉讼之一。这些诉讼与她的业务“非常契合”。

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Sheets已在四个州对数据中心提起四起妨害公共利益的诉讼，并正在准备提起其他诉讼。诉讼称，数据中心冷却系统和发电机持续产生的噪音严重干扰了附近居民对其房产的使用和享受——这是证明私人妨害的法律标准。诉讼还指控数据中心拉低了当地的房产价值。

针对数据中心的诉讼遵循着一套经常用于针对大型工业设施的法律策略。

卡多佐法学院专注于土地利用法的教授迈克尔·波拉克表示，法院将把用于解决环境和土地利用问题的同一套法律应用于数据中心。

数据中心相关的一些高利润工作最终可能会消失。

如果诉讼成功延缓了数据中心的发展，数据中心行业可能会游说国会通过立法，禁止地方政府阻挠新的建设项目。这或许能够阻止针对数据中心的大量地方诉讼。

20 世纪 90 年代，一些地方社区封锁了无线手机信号塔，之后国会在 1996 年的《电信法》中加大了市政当局禁止无线服务天线或信号塔的难度。

波拉克说：“企业可能会希望各州或国会通过法律，从而获得一张王牌。”