Legal Associate, USA

Department: Legal & Corporate Affairs

Employment Type: Full Time

Location: Austin

Description

Cubico Sustainable Investment Limited (Cubico) is looking for a mid-senior level lawyer to join its legal team as a Senior Legal Associate (Development) based in Austin, Texas.  
 The candidate should have some experience with project development contracts and other documents in the renewables space. Some project finance will also be of benefit, as they will be supporting other members of the legal team in providing high quality advice across all matters affecting Cubico’s business in the USA. It is a wide-ranging role that will require the candidate to deliver legal advice and support across the full range of development, construction and operational matters relating to Cubico’s US business.  
 
The candidate will be reporting to the Head of Legal for the USA and be expected to work closely with the other members of the Cubico USA Development and Construction teams and other members of the global legal team. 
 
This role represents a fantastic opportunity to join a dynamic, highly-qualified and experienced Legal team within a well-established and fast-growing organisation, enabling the candidate to exponentially build upon their existing knowledge of project development contracts as well as to develop an in-depth understanding of the renewable energy sector from an operational perspective and take responsibility for a key area of Cubico’s growth.   

Key Responsibilities

• Providing accurate and effective advice on primarily development and permitting matters but also on a wide range of construction and operational matters  
• Working flexibly reviewing and contributing to other corporate, M&A, joint venture and project finance matters relating to Cubico’s US renewable energy investments 
• Drafting, reviewing and negotiating all types of project development contracts (e.g. site control documents (leases and purchase agreements), interconnection agreements, PPAs, DSAs, EPCs, TSAs, BOPs etc) and providing advice internally on the same 
• Analysing title reports and negotiating surface use waivers with sub-surface mineral rights owners 
• Liaising and working collaboratively with Cubico USA team members and engaging specialist external legal advice where appropriate in the context of development, permitting and construction matters  
• Working collaboratively with other members of the Cubico in-house legal team 
• Supporting the development of in-house expertise, both within the Legal team and across business divisions and developing internal policies, procedures and precedents 
• Delivering advice in a clear and concise manner in a fast-paced environment to a variety of business teams and seniority levels  
• Advising on new law / regulation / policy changes and how the business and template documentation can best take account of this 
• Having the strength of conviction to satisfactorily negotiate mitigation (either internally or externally) to risks and/or reporting any matters of a legal nature which should be drawn to other team members’ attention in the analysis of whether to continue efforts on any given development project 
• Scope for management of other Development Lawyers in the team in future

Key Stakeholders

• Head of Legal - USA 
• US Country Head, US development, construction and asset management teams, US HSE Manager
• Maintaining and developing positive relationships with colleagues in other functional departments such as Portfolio Management & Strategy, Finance & Tax and Investment Oversight as well as within Legal, HR & Corporate Affairs  

Skills, Knowledge and Expertise

The successful candidate will need to have: 

• Prior development and construction legal experience in the renewables space (gained either in private practice or in-house (with at least some private practice experience)) is essential  
• Some project finance and/or company law/M&A experience would be advantageous  
• Lawyer having appropriate State bar qualifications 
• Native/fluent English speaker 

Competencies:  

• Proactive and pragmatic with a positive attitude and can-do approach  
• Enthusiastic and able to take ownership of problems and provide commercial solutions  
• Self-starter who identifies when to clarify tasks and requirements, has the ability to manage a full and varied workload, and can prioritise and work under tight timescales 
• Develops constructive professional relationships  
• Experience of instructing and managing external counsel preferred  
• Ability to persuade and influence inter