Legal Counsel

Neara is a high-growth, venture-backed Series C, tech company headquartered in Sydney, Australia. Recognized as one of the Times 100 Most Influential Companies of 2024, our vision is to change how the world operates, builds and designs critical infrastructure. We work with over 90% of the utilities in Australia and New Zealand and are rapidly expanding into new industries and across the US and Europe. Our mission is to revolutionize the utilities industry with our 3D digital network models, enabling customers to future-proof their infrastructure, protect global communities and navigate the clean energy transition.

We are very excited to hire a Legal Counsel. As Legal Counsel, you will be the second legal hire at Neara, and contribute to groundbreaking projects across all of the global regions in which we operate, with a particular focus on assisting our US team. Collaborating closely with leaders across Sales, Customer Success, Product and Engineering teams, you will independently drive outcomes on transactions, operations, governance and regulatory management. You will have significant ownership over building and scaling the legal function at Neara, and the independence to build creative and innovative solutions to complex problems. 

In addition to scaling the legal function at Neara, this role also provides a rare opportunity to gain skills in other non-legal areas such as capital raising and investor relations, strategy and financial operations.

Prerequisites for this role are that you are both US-qualified, and have demonstrated technical excellence and prior corporate/commercial legal experience, whether that be M&A, PE, TMT, finance, IP or general commercial. We are looking for individuals who enjoy supportive but unstructured environments, and can think critically and come up with scalable solutions to complex problems. You will have the opportunity to lead global negotiations with key customers, partners and suppliers. While experience in software and start up/scale ups is beneficial, we prioritize your ability to analyze situations, pinpoint key issues, and implement commercial solutions.

Some of the things you will contribute to:

• Lead global negotiations for key customers, partners and suppliers

• Contribute to and ultimately own the identification, analysis and implemented solutions for global issues across IP, Corporate, Employment and Commercial scope

• Build and be the primary owner of all legal documentation

• Significantly contribute to the construction of a legal and regulatory strategy that both manages risk and facilitates growth

• Play an active role in the definition and improvement of commercial operations, such as contract management, sales processes, revenue tracking and general organizational scaling

Some attributes we highly regard:

• Elite attention to detail

• Proven experience and technical excellence in corporate or commercial law

• Self-motivated problem solver who can quickly get to the core of complex challenges

• Ability to break down problems systematically and develop practical solutions

• Experience communicating technical concepts to diverse stakeholders

• Strong project management skills with experience handling complex deals or matters with many moving parts

Some of the benefits we have on offer: 

• The real benefit is working on a genuinely complex, innovative and industry leading product making a genuine difference in the world around us

• An opportunity to evolve between transactional legal work and into a hands-on, impactful and business-critical commercial role

• High degree of autonomy and scope to make this role your own

• An opportunity to build a key pillar of a high growth business from the ground up

• Competitive salary

• Meaningful ESOP

• Flexible working arrangements with a fully stocked office in Redfern

• Regular office events