Senior Counsel

About the Role

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

Position Description

The Senior Counsel will play a critical role as an agile generalist supporting the Company’s continued growth across the business. More specifically, we are looking for a mid-level corporate attorney with 4-6 years of experience to help us across a range of needs, including:

• Supporting corporate legal work (e.g., work related to our SEC filings, corporate structuring, and governance work)
• Commercial work
• Supporting strategic transactions and M&A
• Helping out with other legal needs across the company as they arise

We are not looking for a niche specialist: we are looking for a lawyer who is comfortable being uncomfortable. Oklo is growing fast and every day presents new opportunities and challenging legal questions, and this role needs to be excited to roll up their sleeves and lean in wherever needed. If you are someone who thrives in exciting and fast-moving environments, and is eager to learn and push yourself, this role may be for you.

Specific Responsibilities

• Assist with preparing and reviewing Oklo’s SEC filings, including coordinating with and supervising outside counsel as needed
• Assist with routine corporate legal work, including managing Oklo’s subsidiaries (working closely with external paralegals and service providers), and helping keep on top of corporate governance needs
• Support the Corporate Secretary with Board-related matters and legal work
• Assist with various strategic transactions, including helping to negotiate partnership agreements, investment agreements, and close M&A transactions, and supervising outside counsel as needed
• Negotiate a variety of commercial, vendor, and license agreements (including MOUs, PPAs, NDAs, etc.)
• Help us mature our legal practices and approach (including with respect to routine compliance- and employment-related matters)

Competencies

We are looking for a Senior Counsel that is:

• Comfortable supporting a range of legal needs, including securities filings, corporate governance, commercial negotiations, M&A and strategic investments, etc.
• A systems thinker that is comfortable both building for the long-term (and project managing cross-functional tasks to completion) and rolling their sleeves up to get things done in the short term
• Substantive agility: 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)
• 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

Minimum Qualifications

• A J.D. from an ABA-accredited law school, and admission to practice law in at least one U.S. state
• At least 4-6 years of experience, ideally with a mix of biglaw and in-house experience (though we will consider applicants with just one or the other)
• Experience supporting a public company with SEC and other corporate legal work
• Commercial legal experience negotiating a variety of agreements
• Experience supporting strategic transactions (whether investments or M&A)
• Experience supporting Board-related corporate governance needs

Bonus Qualifications

• Experience working in-house, particularly in a high growth or startup environment
• Experience leveraging legal technology (especially legal AI tools)
• IP experience (in particular, patent experience, especially if involving “hard science” related technologies)
• Energy or Projec