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.
My clients frequently consult me on law department benchmarking as an initial step in the hiring process. According to the 2006 Altman Weil/Lexis Nexis Law Department Metrics Benchmarking Survey (conducted and published annually), most legal departments are staffed in accordance with lawyers per total revenues. Averages are as follows:
- 3.49 lawyers per billion in revenues
- 1 paralegal per billion in revenues (or .3 paralegals per lawyer)
- 2 administrative assistants per billion in revenues
According to the survey, average internal costs per lawyer were $333,000. In my experience, the balance tips in favor of adding an additional lawyer to the department when outside counsel costs in a particular area exceed $400,000. However, certain industries have much higher headcount needs, such as electrical and chemical manufacturing. See also the Law.com In-House Counsel section for additional information.
Another excellent resource for law department benchmarking is Rees Morrison, a consultant with Hildebrandt International.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
Courtney Sapire is a Texas-based legal and executive search consultant specializing in the recruitment of lawyers for corporate law departments. With experience as a private practice attorney and as a corporate human resources director, Courtney brings the ideal blend of industry knowledge and functional expertise to her search consulting practice.
Courtney received her B.B.A. in finance in 1989 from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was on the Dean's List of Academic Excellence. In 1992, she received her J.D. from the Southern Methodist University School of Law and was published in the SMU Law Review. As an attorney in private practice, Courtney specialized in corporate, real estate and energy transactions. She later held positions as the Director of Human Resources and Recruiting for two technology companies. Courtney has a Senior Human Resources Professional Certification, and is a member of the Energy Bar Association, the State Bar of Texas and the Society for Human Resource Management.
Prior to focusing her search career on attorneys and related professionals, Courtney managed senior-level searches in a variety of functional areas including executive management, marketing, sales, engineering and technical operations. In the legal search domain, Courtney built a successful career as one of the top in-house recruiters in Texas. In addition, she launched a national energy practice as an attorney search consultant with a large Texas-based search firm. Courtney has successfully completed national searches for companies across the country from the general counsel to staff attorney level.
