Knowledge Counsel - Projects and Infrastructure

Overview

Mayer Brown is an international law firm positioned to represent the world’s major corporations, funds, and financial institutions in their most important and complex transactions and disputes. We are recognized by our clients as strategic partners with deep commercial instincts and a commitment to creatively anticipating their needs and delivering excellence in everything we do.We are a collegial, collaborative firm where highly motivated individuals with an unwavering commitment to excellence receive the opportunity, support, and development they need to grow, thrive, and realize their greatest potential all while supporting the Firm’s client service principles of excellence, strategic partnership, commercial instinct, integrated strengths, innovation, and collaboration across our international firm.

If you thrive in a collaborative environment that values exceptional client service, initiative, professionalism, responsiveness, and adaptability, we invite you to consider joining our Knowledge Management department in our Chicago, or New York office as a Knowledge Counsel (Projects and Infrastructure).

The Knowledge Management Counsel creates, curates and updates substantive legal resources, standard forms, precedent, training, and current awareness for their practice group, and drives the adoption of AI tools and innovative technology within the practice. The role captures and structures institutional expertise, reduces risk and duplicated effort, and equips attorneys to deliver consistent, efficient, and high-calibre client service. Working closely with practice group attorneys, the Knowledge Management Counsel embeds market experience into the knowledge assets produced and keeps them current and commercially relevant.

Responsibilities

Essential Functions:  

Knowledge Strategy

• Partner with practice leadership to assess knowledge needs and develop and implement a strategy to address them and align with the practice’s business priorities
• Clearly and consistently communicate the knowledge strategy to the practice group
• Regularly review the knowledge strategy and its execution to inform and update priorities and strategic decisions

Legal Knowledge Resources

• Monitor and keep the practice group up to date and ahead of the curve on relevant developments in law and business
• Lead the capture, creation, drafting, updating and ongoing enhancement of market-leading knowledge resources, including standard forms, precedent documents, best practices, how-to-memos, legal research documents and other relevant resources for the practice group
• Maintain and expand the practice’s project finance and development knowledge resources, including deal-closing protocols, renewable project finance deal trackers, local counsel and specialist databases, diligence templates, legal opinions, model credit documentation, and precedent collections for key project agreements
• Apply substantive project finance judgment to classify precedents, identify meaningful deal terms and market distinctions, and help attorneys locate the most relevant documents for lender-side, sponsor-side and development matters
• Assess, develop and collect attorney feedback on practice workflows and identify and implement appropriate knowledge management and practice solutions to improve efficiency and effectiveness of client service delivery
• Ensure knowledge resources are readily accessible and remain current and aligned with practice needs
• Conduct periodic and regular updates (including matter debriefs) with attorneys to support know how collections
• Oversee the systematic capture of project finance and development know-how at matter closing, coordinating with deal teams to collect final transaction documents, update trackers and databases, and preserve reusable lessons learned
• Verify data accuracy within KM systems and ensure effective data collection processes
• Work with other stakeholders to implement new workflows and technology solutions that improve data capture
• Advise and act as a trusted sounding board for partners and attorneys on technical legal queries and, where appropriate, collaborate directly with clients on service delivery
• Advise on and mitigate risk for the practice group by keeping abreast of legal and regulatory developments that impact the practice, working closing with risk partners and the firms Legal Risk Management team
• Meet regularly with attorneys in the practice group to obtain insights relevant to improving knowledge management resources, strategy and technology resources
• Work with the practice group and Business Development & Marketing to establish processes to capture matter descriptions and categorizations in the firm’s matter systems
• Coordinate project finance and development deal submissions and taxonomy with Business Development, including the transition to new firmwide deal-collection tools and the ongoing accuracy of matter descriptions and transaction classifications
• Assist with setting up a process for producing closing binders and collecting valuable precedent documents

Legal Technology & Innovation

• Develop and advance expertise on emerging technologies and knowledge management systems relevant to the practice group, including AI-driven applications
• Build, curate and maintain practice-specific AI and precedent resources for project finance work, including secure document collections and workflows covering PPAs, EPC agreements, O&M agreements, tax equity and tax credit transfer agreements, and other core financing and project documents
• Apply and reinforce firm information-governance requirements when using AI tools, including confirming that documents placed in shared knowledge collections have appropriate access and security setting
• Partner with Knowledge Counsel, Knowledge Management, Legal Technology & Innovation, Practice Management and other technology and business services teams to identify, evaluate, pilot, configure and deploy solutions that meet attorney needs and drive more efficient client service delivery, leveraging and building upon existing firm tools and technology platforms rather than developing solutions from scratch
• Drive implementation and adoption of legal technology, including generative AI and document automation
• Help evaluate generative AI capabilities, including developing, testing, and refining prompts for specific legal tasks aligned with practice needs and firm best practices
• Act as a subject matter expert on the effective use of legal technology and AI within the practice group
• Work with the Legal Project Management team on legal process improvement and project management initiatives for the practice group
• Develop and enhance AI and other technology systems based on attorney feedback on KM systems, as well as client feedback
• Work with attorneys to translate practice-specific workflows into scalable, technology-enabled solutions and advise on improved processes and new tools

Knowledge Data Transformation & Information Architecture

• Collaborate with internal data, innovation and transformation teams to leverage AI in enhancing the firm’s knowledge assets – streamlining classification, producing draft profiles for review, and enriching content with metadata that makes it findable and useful
• Work with the practice group to define practice-specific metadata, including legal topics, document types and the data points that matter to how they practice
• Contribute to the firm’s governance of AI assets – including prompts, workflows and agents – ensuring they are portable and vendor-agnostic, able to be shared across systems rather than locked into a single platform

Market Support

• Research, monitor and inform the practice of key legal and market developments and trends including their impact on attorney practice and clients
• Identify opportunities for the practice to use its internal know-how, expertise and insights to pursue business opportunities and raise its profile in alignment with the practice’s strategy and priorities, including active involvement in client pitches and cross-selling the practice’s capabilities in collaboration with other practice groups across the firm
• Draft, research and assist partners and attorneys with the legal content for client alerts, articles, thought leadership pieces and other client-facing products as needed by the practice, in all cases demonstrating the practice’s leading technical capability and market awareness
• Support attorneys in strengthening client relationships by developing, and where appropriate, delivering client training, seminars and talking points

Attorney Training/ Technical Expertise

• Work with partners and attorneys in collaboration with Learning & Development to identify and plan core practice-related training, including ideas for utilization of technology and different approaches to deliver an engaging training program for the practice including team training, seminars, workshops and offsite training
• Develop and deliver substantive training on project finance fundamentals, transaction structures, diligence, core financing and project documents, market developments, and associate best practices; maintain an accessible library of training recordings and materials
• Capture valuable training materials and make them easily accessible to the practice group
• Develop and deliver legal training for attorneys to assist them with locating practice-related internal and external practice knowledge
• Design and deliver training on KM resources and best practices, and in collaboration with technology training teams, legal technology and best practices
• Promote use of the practice group’s KM resources and drive adoption and behavioral change across the practice
• Mentor associates by advising and demonstrating best practices in the use of knowledge management resources, assist attorneys in finding relevant knowledge management materials on request and help attorneys develop increasing independent and competence in finding and using knowledge management and practice solutions
• Establish relationships with attorneys to promote awareness of, and solicit participation in KM initiatives

Firmwide Collaboration

• Proactively develop relationships across the firm with attorneys, knowledge management, innovation, technology, and other business services teams to ensure seamless support for the practice group
• Gather feedback and continuously refine knowledge management and practice solutions
• Contribute to firmwide knowledge management initiatives and cross-practice collaboration
• Participate in Knowledge Management meetings to facilitate the sharing of best practices and knowledge

Other

• Attend external training and conferences to keep up-to-date with relevant developments in the law, business environment and knowledge management
• Foster own internal and external networks
• Provide other knowledge support to the practice group as may be assigned by the head of the practice group, the Knowledge Partner, or the Director of Knowledge Management

Qualifications, Experience and Personal Attributes

Education/Training/Certifications:

• J.D. or equivalent law degree from an accredited institution
• This position requires a lawyer with actual practice experience in a field related to Projects and Infrastructure who is or will become admitted to practice in the jurisdiction in which the position is located

Professional Experience:

• Minimum of 6 years’ experience practicing as a US Projects & Infrastructure lawyer for an AmLaw 100 law firm, with substantial hands-on project finance experience
• Excellent knowledge of structuring, drafting and negotiating project finance transactions, including secured debt financings for energy and infrastructure projects, with experience representing lenders, sponsors and/or developers
• Strong knowledge of project development and commercial arrangements used in energy and infrastructure transactions, including power purchase agreements, EPC agreements, O&M agreements, interconnection arrangements and related diligence; experience with tax equity or tax credit transfer transactions is an advantage
• Excellent knowledge of secured lending principles, credit agreements, collateral and security documents, UCC Article 9, legal opinions, transaction diligence and closing processes relevant to project finance matters

 Technical Skills: 

• Proficiency in Microsoft Office products, required
• Experience using AI platforms and knowledge-management technology in a U.S. finance practice, including building and maintaining precedent collections, testing legal workflows and translating practice needs into scalable solutions

 Performance Traits:

• High professional standards with a passion for delivering quality product
• Excellent drafting, problem solving and research skills
• Ability to assess project finance documents and precedents with strong legal judgment, distinguish transaction-specific provisions from reusable market terms, and communicate practical guidance to attorneys at all levels
• Well-developed organizational and communication skills
• Understanding of different learning processes and different methods of training
• Excellent people skills and good, clear communication style
• Ability to work effectively with an established, close-knit team
• Ability to interact with people at all levels and build credibility and relationships in all areas of the business
• A commercial and pragmatic outlook
• Positive, self-motivated and dynamic, with a highly proactive, independent approach to taking ownership of and advancing workflows

This description is not exhaustive, and the Firm may modify it at any time at its sole discretion; nothing herein creates an employment contract or alters the at-will nature of employment.

We offer competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits, including medical/dental/vision/life/and AD&D insurance, 401(k) savings plan, back-up childcare and eldercare, generous paid time off (PTO), as well as opportunities for professional development and growth.

We are committed to providing equal opportunity and reasonable accommodations to applicants and employees with disabilities and disabled veterans. To request an accommodation related to the application process or interview, please email [email protected]. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.

Mayer Brown works with select external search firms that have been vetted against our standards. Firms without a contract or agreement with Mayer Brown are not authorized to represent that they are working with the Firm, nor are they entitled to placement fees. Mayer Brown does not accept unsolicited CVs from external recruiters. Submission of an unsolicited CV to Mayer Brown or any of its Partners or employees will not establish any right of priority for the submitting agency.

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Posted Pay Range

The typical pay scale for this position is between USD $254,000.00/Yr. and USD $336,000.00/Yr., although the actual wage or salary could be lower or higher if the candidate's education, experience, skills and internal pay alignment are different from those specified.