Nicole Sakhleh

As Barton Malow’s Vice President of Legal, Nicole provides the construction enterprise with legal leadership and support, ensuring the highest standards of legal and ethical conduct are met across the organization. Before joining Barton Malow in the summer of 2024, Nicole spent nearly two decades growing her career in construction law at companies like General Motors, Rivian Automotive, and Redwood Materials, as well as local law firms in southeast Michigan. Now sitting on the other side of the table from some of Barton Malow’s key clients, Nicole brings a wealth of expertise in construction law, commercial and industrial real estate, contract negotiation, and dispute resolution.

At General Motors, Nicole focused on the expansion and optimization of the automaker’s industrial real estate portfolio before joining Rivian Automotive as its first in-house real estate and construction lawyer in 2019. There, she led the legal support of the manufacturer’s ever-growing global footprint and grew the real estate and construction legal team that performed work for site selection, manufacturing plants, industrial warehouses, workplace locations, research and development, service, retail, and charging stations.

These experiences — one with an established legacy organization and the other with a startup — serve as bookends to her career that will guide her as she leads Barton Malow through all project-related legal matters.

Nicole graduated from Michigan State University with a bachelor’s degree in General Business with a focus in pre-law and attended law school at Wayne State University, where she received her Juris Doctor (JD).