Phone (Direct Line):  404 817 8041   Email:  jsburbage@bwatl.com

Jesse S. Burbage has more than four decades of experience advising privately held and growth-stage businesses on corporate, contract, technology, finance, governance, and transaction matters. He has represented businesses in the technology, software, financial services, manufacturing, automotive parts supply, commercial real estate, and service sectors.

A significant part of Mr. Burbage’s practice involves structuring and drafting operating agreements for limited liability companies used in complex real estate, investment, financing, and closely held business transactions, as well as commercial agreements for technology and SaaS businesses.

In his LLC practice, Mr. Burbage assists clients with governance structure, manager and member authority, capital contributions, preferred returns, distribution waterfalls, tax allocations, transfer restrictions, buy-sell provisions, deadlock mechanisms, minority-owner protections, duties of managers and members, and exit rights. His work emphasizes converting negotiated business terms into practical governing documents that owners can use over the life of the business.

In his technology and SaaS practice, Mr. Burbage drafts and negotiates commercial agreements, including SaaS subscription agreements, partner agreements, reseller and referral arrangements, implementation and support terms, technology licensing agreements, confidentiality agreements, data use, privacy, and data security provisions, and related vendor and customer contracts. He works with clients to address contract structure, revenue terms, allocation of risk, intellectual property rights, limitations of liability, indemnity, service obligations, and termination rights.

His broader transactional practice includes shareholder agreements, joint venture agreements, acquisition documents, financing documents, supplier arrangements, outsourcing agreements, and other business contracts. His manufacturing and supplier experience includes representing domestic and international suppliers in negotiating supply contracts, pricing and terms renegotiation, surcharge recovery, warranty claims, and other commercial contract matters.

Mr. Burbage also advises clients on corporate finance matters, including private placements, equity structuring, secured lending, loan restructurings, forbearance arrangements, and special-purpose entity structures. He has represented buyers and sellers in mergers and acquisitions and has advised companies on the tax, risk allocation, governance, and business issues arising in complex transactions.

Mr. Burbage has received an AV Preeminent® Peer Review Rating from Martindale-Hubbell, its highest peer rating standard for legal ability and ethical standards. He is a member of the Business Law, Corporate Counsel, Intellectual Property Law, and Privacy & Technology Law Sections of the State Bar of Georgia.

Before entering private practice, Mr. Burbage served as a law clerk to The Honorable Lewis R. Morgan, who served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and, following the division of that court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He then practiced with Bondurant, Miller, Hishon & Stephenson, where he trained in mergers and acquisitions, corporate tax, corporate finance, securities, and business transactions.

Mr. Burbage graduated magna cum laude and Order of the Coif from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1981. While in law school, he served on the Georgia Law Review, was selected to its managing board, participated in moot court, and won the Talmadge Moot Court Competition. Before attending the University of Georgia, he received a Rotary International Scholarship to study law at Ruhr University Bochum in then-West Germany.