Large Texas company seeks experienced transactions attorneys (ideally in the 5-7 year range) for temporary assignments in Austin. Candidates must have experience handling federal, state and local government sales or procurement transactions. Local candidates preferred, but not required. This opportunity has the potential to become permanent. Please send salary / rate requirements to csapire@sapiresearch.com.
National law firm seeks litigation attorneys for immediate contract assignment in Atlanta. Experience handling employment litigation matters is desirable. The work is substantive and requires thoughtful analysis and discretion. Great resume-building experience and opportunity to work with a firm in growth mode. Please e-mail resume and contract rate to csapire@sapiresearch.com.
Large company seeks commercial contracts negotiators to review, analyze and negotiate domestic and international sales agreements. Position responsibilities include:
· Leading negotiations for the sale of information technology projects and services
· Interacting with senior management as both an advisor and business leader
· Collaborating with sales, operations, finance, legal, tax, and risk management to ensure that agreements adequately protect company’s interests
· Reviewing and providing input on terms and conditions contained in RFP & and sales proposals
Requirements:
· Heavy experience dealing with international business practices, antitrust laws, intellectual property, resellers, leasing companies, and commercial contract law
· Minimum of 8 years of domestic and international sales negotiation, transactional, and/or in-house corporate legal experience
· Extensive knowledge of the information technology industry and detailed knowledge of commercial contracts terms
This month’s Corporate Counsel features the magazine’s annual review of top legal departments. The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. earned top honors this year for its impressive accomplishments on the precipice of a financial industry meltdown and for its highly-developed internal efforts to promote success within the legal department.
Building a great team, of course, requires hiring great people, but Hartford Financial demonstrates how to push a legal department to truly excel. And having a legal department that excels has never been more critical than it is now in times of tightening budgets and increased scrutiny on legal expenses.
Key lessons your legal department can learn:
- Hire not just talented staff, but talented staff with complementary strengths. Each hire should strengthen the overall team and equip the department to be more agile in the face of changes to the business.
- Systematically implement mentoring and training programs. These are long-term investments that will pay off in recruiting, retention, and productivity.
- Train lawyers within the legal department to hire and manage the relationship with outside counsel. Legal departments of all sizes need their lawyers to take a consistent, strategic approach to working with outside lawyers, particularly in times of tight budgets. Even though most in-house counsel previously worked as outside counsel, many would benefit from training to get the most from outside lawyers.
- Take a hands-on approach to legal work. Keeping in-house counsel actively involved in the matters they manage encourages a better result.
- Encourage innovation. Lawyers are not natural innovators, and change often comes slowly. However, a culture that encourages experimenting with new methods, new approaches, and new perspectives will yield more successes than failures.
You can learn more about Hartford Financial’s successes here: http://www.law.com/jsp/ihc/PubArticleIHC.jsp?id=1202430800136.
The credit crisis has wreaked havoc on several practice areas, including real estate and finance. Many lawyers who specialize in these practices are seeking new positions. The problem is that there aren’t many openings for these lawyers right now. Worse, the trend for the last 5-8 years has been to hire “specialists,” those with niche areas of expertise – the round peg for the round hole.
Here are some tips on how to break into a new area, or “re-tool” your practice:
- Start building your résumé and your knowledge base. Attend CLE courses and list them. Research and write an article about a particular area. Better yet, find the experts and ask if you can assist with an article. These people are usually on the speaking circuit and are frequently publishing. They may welcome some assistance on a particular topic.
- Try to get contract work in that area. Many companies and firms need attorneys to fill in on a project basis (not just for document reviews).
- Take on some pro bono work in that area if you can find it.
- Work for a government agency. Although it may be a temporary financial setback, the hands-on experience can be fantastic.
- NETWORK. Despite the trend of hiring lawyers with a track record in a particular area, there are still employers out there who simply want hard-working individuals with bright minds. They just won’t pay a search firm to find them.
Global energy company with a top-caliber legal department seeks an attorney to support its renewable energy division. The position will provide legal support in the nature of counseling, drafting, negotiating, and transactional assistance for clients.
This position is for an experienced commercial attorney with extensive transactional experience. This position will provide legal support in the nature of counseling, drafting, negotiating, and transactional assistance to the company’s solar business including:
· Providing advice, counsel and general transactional support in connection with the design, manufacture and marketing of solar electric systems for a wide range of applications in the residential, commercial and industrial sectors;
· Negotiating, drafting and reviewing complex, detailed project agreements such as memoranda of understanding, engineering, procurement and construction agreements, operation and maintenance agreements, leases, supply agreements, technology agreements and joint venture agreements;
· Supporting bid transactions and acquisition efforts;
· Supporting divestiture activities and sales of operating projects and projects in development;
· Managing outside counsel as appropriate;
· Providing client training on related legal issues.
The position will also require cross-team collaboration and coordination of legal workload with the other legal colleagues. The candidate should have a proven track record as a team player and as an effective manager of resources, both internal and external.
This company offers an outstanding work environment, along with a competitive compensation and benefits package.
Global energy company with a top-caliber legal department seeks an attorney to support its renewable energy division. The position will provide legal support in the nature of counseling, drafting, negotiating, and transactional assistance for clients.
This position is for an experienced commercial attorney with transactional and project development experience to support wind projects. This position will provide legal support in the nature of counseling, drafting, negotiating, and transactional assistance to the company’s wind business including:
· Providing advice, counsel and general transactional support in connection with the development, construction, and operation of wind projects;
· Negotiating, drafting and reviewing complex, detailed project agreements such as site plan agreements, escrow agreements, supply and transmission agreements, memoranda of understanding, engineering, procurement and construction agreements, operation and maintenance agreements, and equipment supply agreements;
· Supporting bid transactions and acquisition efforts;
· Supporting divestiture activities and sales of operating projects and projects in development;
· Working closely with the real estate attorneys and land team within the wind business in the acquisition of options and leases on land;
· Managing outside counsel as appropriate;
· Providing client training on related legal issues.
The position will also require cross-team collaboration and coordination of legal workload with the other legal colleagues. The candidate should have a proven track record as a team player and as an effective manager of resources, both internal and external.
The company offers an outstanding compensation and benefits package, along with a great work environment.
Global energy company seeks a 5+ year international tax attorney to support regional upstream projects. The role is responsible for ensuring the businesses supported are in full compliance with all tax laws and regulations in each country of operation in the region, while also optimizing the company's tax position.
The tax counsel will be the single point of accountability for providing tax advice to the businesses supported. This will include ensuring the company's tax team and external advisors are engaged and informed of projects within the tax counsel's responsibility. The tax counsel will routinely interact with the relevant commercial and function contacts to ensure that the tax team is aware of operations in the region and proper tax support is being provided.
The company offers an outstanding benefits package and work environment, along with a collaborative legal team.
The tax counsel will ensure compliance with the tax laws in each of the countries where the businesses supported operate, including review and support of outsource compliance functions.
Qualifications include: A tax background to support international operations (minimum of five years of relevant experience).
Demonstrated communication skills, including the ability to summarize complex, cross-jurisdictional issues in a concise, articulate manner, both written and oral. Spanish or Portuguese capabilities a plus.
Growing Texas division of a large international company seeks a midstream transactions attorney with experience in natural gas transactions and operations. The company offers competitive compensation, flexible work schedules, a collaborative work environment, and an opportunity to join a dynamic and rapidly growing sector of the energy industry.
Responsibilities include:
- Provide overall legal advice and assistance on project development and facility operations matters, which may include real estate matters, permitting (state and federal), vendor service contracts, construction contracts and related matters, and working with outside counsel on same.
- Provide legal assessments, interpretations, recommendations and representation on project development matters, including related policy matters. Manage and assist in due diligence on project acquisitions and divestitures.
- Provide overall legal advice and assistance on gas storage commercial transactional matters, which may include development and negotiation of storage agreements, interpretation and drafting of storage tariffs (FERC) and other interaction with the FERC in respect of the Company’s current and future gas storage activities.
- Provide assistance with compliance and training programs, and draft legal advisories, documents and contracts, including transactional documents and board papers.
Qualifications
- 5+ years experience working on the development of energy resources, with a particular focus on real property, oil, gas and energy and permitting or engineering, construction and procurement.
- Ability to draft and negotiate storage agreements and vendor master service agreements, draft permitting applications and manage legal requirements associated natural gas storage and transportation operations.
- Experience with form energy agreements (including the EEI, WSPP, ISDA, IADC), customized energy purchase agreements, physical and financial trading, natural gas storage, transportation, scheduling, and credit enhancement/ margin agreements, letters of intent and term sheets for project development/acquisition.
- Experience with general business law and natural gas / electricity energy transactions.
- Experience with FERC rules, regulations and policy in respect of natural gas storage matters (including both Section 311 and Section 7(c) authorizations).
Global energy company seeks an executive-level attorney with strong energy project development experience for the role of Vice President and Assistant General Counsel. This position reports to the Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary of the parent company and also to the President & CEO of one of its divisions.
The Vice President and Assistant General Counsel is responsible for providing legal counsel to the parent company and its subsidiaries in connection with complex energy-related transactional, project development, asset management and finance matters, with emphasis on wind, biomass and other renewable energy sources. The position will also be responsible for assisting the company on compliance issues, including local, state and federal regulatory requirements and overall compliance with national, state and/or local laws and regulations in North America.
Specific responsibilities include:
- Developing and executing comprehensive legal strategies and solutions to lawfully facilitate the parent company's and its subsidiaries' commercial objectives while mitigating any associated legal risks
- Providing legal advice and support to the renewable energy business unit, in connection with complex energy-related project development, asset management and finance agreements, and ensuring compliance with national, state and/or local laws and regulations in North America
- Advising on North American national, state and local regulations and requirements, with an emphasis on renewable energy
- Assisting with managing litigation, administrative proceedings and policy matters with an emphasis on matters involving the renewable energy unit
- Providing support to the parent company legal function generally in matters not involving renewable energy, including gas, power and LNG matters
In addition to a great work environment with a strong leadership team, the company offers an attractive compensation package that includes both short and long-term incentives, as well as an annual perquisite allowance.
Global company headquartered in Houston seeks an executive-level attorney for the role of Associate General Counsel - Commercial. This officer-level position reports to the Senior Vice President and General Counsel and leads a team of three attorneys.
The Associate General Counsel heads the Commercial Section of the Law Department, which is responsible for day-to-day legal advice on business matters for the company's various operating divisions, functional departments and international operations. The AGC functions as a quasi-general counsel for one or more operating divisions with direct responsibility for assisting the applicable division executives and staff. In that capacity, the AGC manages all aspects of that division's legal needs, excluding IP, labor & employment, tax, environmental and litigation, all of which are handled by other attorneys at the company.
The Commercial Section has primary responsibility for providing legal support for issues related to commercial contracts, supplier relationships, distribution/rep relations & termination, FTC regulations, IT licenses and agreements, real estate, secured transactions, UCC, etc.
Ideal experience would include a strong finance or accounting background and familiarity with corporate compliance, including customs, export control, anti-boycott and other international trade issues, FCPA, and government contracting.
This position will be a key part of the management of the law department and will drive certain law department initiatives, including the establishment of law department policies and developing corporate-wide compliance assurance.
Compensation:
The company is offering an outstanding compensation package for this role that includes cash and equity.
Required Experience:
• 15+ years of experience, including prior law department management experience
• Strong commercial transactions and international experience
• Strong finance or accounting background
• Proven ability to work as part of a cross-functional team in overall project management, including the ability to work within established corporate risk tolerance levels.
As you gain experience in your legal career, you’re likely to be contacted by a legal recruiter at some point. Here are tips on building and managing strong relationships with them:
Know what you want. Offer yourself as a candidate only if you’re serious about making a change. Headhunters don’t like “tire-kickers.” Legal recruiters are engaged by their clients to find qualified and motivated candidates.
Be available. Once you’ve agreed to submit your resume for a particular position, make yourself available for interviews. Although it’s time-consuming, being too difficult to schedule potentially sends a message to a prospective employer that you’re not interested in the position.
Is everyone on board? Be sure to discuss career moves with family members who would be impacted by a change, or whose voices count in your decision-making process. Don’t get to the offer stage before you discuss relocating with your spouse.
Disclosure. If you have submitted your resume to other firms or companies, and by all means, if you are currently interviewing for a different position than the one for which you’ve been contacted, disclose this information up front. No one likes surprises, especially the firm or company that’s about to make you an offer.
Stay in touch. Check in with legal recruiters about once every two weeks to stay on the radar screen, and especially if you have a status change.
Large energy company located in Houston seeks a 5+ year transactions lawyer to provide operational support for one of its divisions. The role provides a great career platform at a company with a history of promoting internally. In addition, the salary is competitive and the company offers a generous short and long-term incentive plan.
Responsibilities include:
- Providing transactional and regulatory support for new product development and new market entry.
- Handling transactions related to energy commodities and services.
- Providing operational support in connection with billing, customer support and with automating documentation processes.
- Managing outside vendors, outside counsel and contract compliance.
- Managing litigation relating to energy commodities and services.
A prior in-house background is a plus. Also, candidates with a solid understanding of energy markets are preferred.
For an industry that runs on natural resources, it’s the human component that is becoming its newest challenge. The energy sector of the economy is more active than at any other time in the last 20 years. However, the industry has not only failed to attract new graduates, but it has lost seasoned professionals.
Despite periodic spectacular earnings over the last 20 years, the oil and gas attorney workforce has been declining steadily for almost 20 years. The industry slump of the 1980’s was unusually severe and left long-lasting scars. Moreover, the “dirty industry” image has not done much in the past to attract people to the profession. Many recall the oil-soaked birds and dead otters on the beach following the Exxon-Valdez spill. Others simply viewed the industry as a slow-growth, old economy behemoth.
Like other oil and gas professionals, lawyers left the industry for less cyclical sectors of the economy. However, unlike other industries affected by the economic downturn, the energy industry recovery did not bring these professionals back, nor were they replaced with new talent. And the high tech boom of the late 1990’s provided refuge for the best and brightest.
Adding to the problem, the average age in the oil and gas industry workforce is 49 – among the oldest of any sector in the U.S. economy. According to Martindale Hubbell, 85% of the lawyers who specialize in oil and gas law have more than 10 years of experience. In addition, a Labor Department study found that more than 65% of workers in the oil and gas industry are between the ages of 35 and 54, while only a “small” percentage are in their twenties.
With the retirement wave approaching and global demand at record levels, energy industry legal departments are headed for a human resource crisis.
Demand Exceeds Supply
Attorneys with certain areas of expertise, such as domestic and international exploration and production (upstream); gathering, processing, transportation and storage (midstream); refining and marketing (downstream); and energy commodities trading are in high demand and in short supply.
The short-term impact on the energy sector job market has been more competition for talent and increasing compensation packages. Sign-on bonuses are making a comeback. These efforts however, will only provide a temporary solution.
Leveraging Resources
Some creative ways to address the problem include:
- Contract Attorneys. There are many senior lawyers in the job market who may have taken a severance package as a result of a consolidation, but are not yet ready for retirement. Hire these lawyers on a contract basis to mentor existing or new lawyers in areas for which talent supply is low.
- Knowledge Management. Establish knowledge retention programs to leverage (as much as possible) the expertise of the specialists.
- Reverse Secondments. “Loan” junior lawyers to outside counsel firms for training. Most firms would welcome the opportunity to strengthen a relationship with a valued client by hosting a member of its legal department for a period of time.
Courtney Sapire, Esq., SPHR
President, Sapire Search Group
866.413.2868 toll free
866.793.8007 fax
