Senior Counsel, Real Estate

Senior Counsel, Real Estate

Santa Clara, CA or Remote

Thanks for your interest in Oklo! We are searching for a Senior Counsel, Real Estate to join our Legal team.

Position Description

We are looking for a Senior Counsel, Real Estate to lead real estate legal matters across Oklo. Primarily, this person will lead real estate acquisitions, dispositions, leases, options, easements, access arrangements, and other site-control transactions; oversee title and ALTA/NSPS survey review and related curative work; and manage local real estate outside counsel across the Oklo's projects and facilities. You will also help provide practical real estate advice to the Oklo's project deployment, business development, finance, and operations teams and support related project agreements and diligence needs as they arise. Additionally, working on a lean team in a high-growth environment, you will have an opportunity to do other corporate, transactional, and other legal work to support the Oklo's constantly evolving needs. This role, which reports to our Associate General Counsel & Assistant Secretary, is perfect for a junior-to-mid-level real estate attorney who is comfortable independently leading fast-paced real estate transactions, and who is looking to stretch themselves, learn, and roll up their sleeves and lean in wherever needed in a highly dynamic environment.

We are looking for a lawyer with deep real estate transactional expertise who is also comfortable addressing novel issues and operating outside traditional real estate workflows when needed. We are growing fast, and every day presents new opportunities and challenging legal questions—we care more about your judgment, agility, and ability to learn and grow than your specific substantive experience. If you are someone who thrives in exciting and fast-moving environments, and are eager to grow and push yourself, this role may be for you.

This is a remote US-based role, but you must be able to travel to our HQ twice per quarter. This role will also likely need to travel occasionally to our project sites, which include locations in Idaho, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas.

Specific responsibilities may include:

• Lead the drafting, review, negotiation, and execution of real estate transactions, including purchase and sale agreements, leases, options, easements, rights-of-way, licenses, access agreements, and other site-control instruments
• Oversee title and survey diligence, including reviewing title commitments, exception documents, pro forma and final title policies, and ALTA/NSPS land title surveys
• Drive real estate transactions from letter of intent through closing and post-closing, including diligence, deliverables, consents, recordable instruments, and ongoing obligations (i.e., drive deals forward!)
• Coordinate legal diligence relating to zoning, land use, entitlements, environmental conditions, site access, utilities, mineral rights, and other matters affecting the development and operation of project sites
• Manage outside counsel across projects, including matter scoping, staffing, budgets, timelines, work product, and performance
• Draft, review, and negotiate development agreements, construction agreements, estoppels, subordination and nondisturbance agreements, consents, assignments, and other agreements ancillary to the Company's real estate projects
• Provide practical legal research and advice across a wide range of business teams
• Help us mature our legal practices and approach, including with respect to real estate diligence, transaction management, title and survey review, outside counsel management, portfolio-level tracking and compliance

Minimum Qualifications

• A J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school and admission to practice law in at least one U.S. state
• 3-5 years of real estate transactional experience at a large law firm or in-house legal department
• Experience independently leading complex acquisitions, dispositions, leases, easements, site-control arrangements, and related real estate closings
• Significant hands-on experience reviewing title commitments, exception documents and ALTA/NSPS land title surveys and resolving title and survey issues
• Experience advising cross-functional project teams on real estate diligence, transaction structures, risk allocation and closing requirements
• Experience working at or supporting companies that build things (ideally complicated, heavily regulated things)
• Strong attention to detail and ability to manage and prioritize multiple matters simultaneously

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience working in-house at a high-growth or startup company
• Experience with work supporting complex construction projects
• Experience with joint ventures and/or project finance
• Experience with environmental matters affecting development projects
• Experience with land use, zoning, entitlement, utilities and/or permitting matters affecting development projects
• Nuclear, energy, infrastructure, or other highly regulated industry experience

Competencies

We are looking for a Senior Counsel, Real Estate who is:

• Comfortable supporting a range of legal needs, with a primary focus on complex real estate transactions, site control, title and ALTA/NSPS survey review, project diligence, transaction execution and outside counsel management
• Excited to move real estate deals along and driving urgency among transaction stakeholders
• Effective at triaging and prioritizing across a wide range of tasks and project managing cross-functional tasks to completion
• A systems thinker who is comfortable both building for the long-term and rolling their sleeves up to get things done in the short term
• Substantively agile: someone who enjoys leaning into new areas, and is comfortable learning new things (and learning quickly!)
• Fluent in or able to leverage legal technology or AI tools to work more efficiently
• Willing to think creatively: knowledgeable about how other teams approach legal department needs, but excited to think creatively and critically about the problems they are solving and to try new approaches
• An excellent communicator (including to non-lawyers) focused on solutions and willing to explain the "why" behind legal advice
• Detail-oriented while moving lightning fast
• Passionate about clean energy and making advanced fission a reality
• An optimist at heart
• Resourceful, inquisitive, and willing and able to learn quickly
• Comfortable in a fast-paced, highly iterative startup environment

Who you are:

A startup person: You aren't driven by titles or hierarchy, and prefer efficiency to excess process. You don't need or expect to have a lot of guidance but you enjoy working in a fast-paced team. If you prefer the culture and feel of a large organization, that is great, but you likely won't enjoy working with us! There is plenty of important work and plenty of good opportunities with organizations like that.

Motivated: You are self-motivated. You bring an enthusiasm to the team, and imbue a sense of passion that goes beyond clocking in and clocking out. This isn't about a fake or arbitrary "pieces of flair" mentality or lack of work-life balance! It is about being a part of the vision and feeling a part of reaching team goals.

A team-player: Oklo genuinely is a team. We aren't about taking credit for ourselves, and we aren't about pushing blame to others. We do incredible things because we work as a team.

An excellent communicator: We need a person who is not only technically competent but also a clear and upbeat communicator.

Creative: Being creative means that when things fall outside clear scopes or processes or problems arise without clear solutions, you are able to identify it as well as invent ways to solve a problem or fill a need without micromanagement. The successful person in this job will not only be creative, but also enjoy being creative and solving open-ended problems which may change day-by-day.

Detail-oriented: This focus is a big part of excellence, consistency, and quality. Excellent grammar and spelling matter for both good communication as well as the image of the company that we put forward.

About Oklo travel requirements:

Oklo requires remote employees to travel to headquarters (Santa Clara, CA) twice a quarter annually, based on business or team needs, including attendance at team meetings, off-sites, and other company events or gatherings. For the first two weeks of onboarding, employees are required to be in person at headquarters in Santa Clara, CA.

About Oklo compensation:

Salary: $200,000-225,000

Oklo offers flexible time off, equity, bonuses, competitive pay, 401(k), health insurance (with employer contribution), HSA, FSA, flexible work hours, wellness credits, and other benefits.