The energy and environment offer new challenges for lawyers and the courts as many current statuses are not appropriate for the standards and legal issues that are raised by this ever-evolving commerce sector. The “green sector”, as the energy and environment are sometimes referred to, are most attractive to young lawyers as the advancements in this area are easily understood by the fresh minds of the young lawyers.  This sector does not disappoint recent graduates as it offers a significant number of placements and opportunities.

Sustainability is another word for opportunity in the energy sector as green jobs are a growing sector of the economy as many laws are passed to prohibit builders and commercial companies from using environment harming materials in their buildings and pursuit of commerce. Since most of the population is in favour of protecting the environment as best we can for the future, a large section of consumer protection and other issues dealing with the preservation of the environment have opened the ranks of jobs for lawyers.

Since sustainability is important for the future, it involves the production of the materials that are used for building materials. The area of law gets involved with the growing and manufacturing sectors as well as the commercial sector. Therefore the flow of work for lawyers is a wide and far reaching field. The world in which the environmentalists and the commercial efforts work in unison is not yet reached in this century. The future holds promise, though.

Project development in the gas and electric sector is a specific area that has kept many lawyers employed in India.  Depending on the location of the practice many lawyers in India have clients involved in the building of roads and especially ports in cities where they are accessible for trade. Depending on the size of the firm the amount of business that can be handled expeditiously in the business many times determines the opportunity available to the lawyers. All will have some sustainability or clean environment issue on the table.

The average lawyer involved with the pipeline most likely received a salary that is slightly above average.  For other lawyers in the clean energy and sustainability sector, the pay varies quite substantially.  Based on the report in NaukriHub (http://www.naukrihub.com/salary-in-india/lawyer.html), the salary range is from INR 19,50,000 to INR 1,76,874. The differential is the size of the firm. Most firms specialise so the clean energy sector would have large, medium, and small firms with the representative salary.  For young lawyers fresh out of law school the amount will vary again depending on the size of the firm. Clean energy and sustainability firms are attractive to young lawyers because of the futuristic nature of the cases as well as the attractive salary that can be obtained at a large firm. 

LSI:  lawyers, green, sustainability, energy, environment

Working as a lawyer has far broader horizons than many people assume. There’s no such thing as someone who is simply a lawyer, because there’s far more to it than simply being a lawyer. They come in many shapes and sizes, each professional with their own expertise, a category that they specialise in.

One of those categories, is a lawyer who works and specialises in the energy sector and in this short article, I’m going to list some of the potential roles, salaries and areas of interest of being a lawyer in the aforementioned field!

The Types Of Workplace

Legal professionals who are employed in the energy sector can work for numerous companies across a number of differing industries and with more roles than you can even imagine. Things like global oil companies, gas companies, producers of renewable energy or even nuclear producers – in each varying industry, they have to deal with a remarkable amount of stress-inducing job roles and duties, meaning that the stress levels of these legal professionals are often through the roof. Though that pretty much goes for every type of legal professional, not just those specialising in the energy sector.

Energy sector specialising lawyers could end up working with banks, governments, utilities and investors, typically involved with familiarising them with and maintaining legal regulation and also providing legal advice on planning and development restrictions.

In essence, being a lawyer in such fields is hands down one of the most stressful roles in the business. This is primarily because they are the ones dealing with the legal side of things, and we are all aware that it is the legal side of things which forces majority of companies and businesses into a spiral of financial downfall. Having to deal with these issues means that if something comes up as illegal, then it’s on the lawyer’s shoulders. If it all goes wrong, the lawyer is to blame.

It’s a field in which error is not acceptable, tolerable or even allowed in the slightest instance. Even the slightest legal errors result in colossal consequences, so when things go wrong, it’s the lawyers head on a stake. But, that’s also why being a lawyer in this type of field comes with its rewards.

Examples Of Salaries

So after looking into it briefly, I found that the majority of companies are paying around about the same sort of salaries and let’s just say that they are all fairly hefty. For example, working as a Legal Counsel for three days a week will earn you around eighty thousand a year, Construction Lawyers are looking at around seventy-five to eighty-five thousand and Corporate Oil and Gas Associates are earning upwards of one-hundred-and-twenty grand a year. So it is fair to say that with big risk, come equally big rewards.

A Great Field To Become Qualified In

If you’re looking to build a career as an energy sector lawyer, then you’re certainly in for an excellently-paid ride. With employers around the globe hiring lawyers at increasingly rising rates each year, which is most likely due to government bodies clamping down on legality and misconduct. Though it won’t be easy. Just like anything in life that is worth getting, becoming a qualified professional in this sort of field will take years of training and education, meaning you’ll have to work incredibly hard at it over a long period of time. But it goes without saying – once you’re qualified, you’ll be most definitely reaping the rewards.

LSI Keywords:

Lawyer

Energy Sector

Education

Legal

Illegal

Legal Professional

Career

Salary

Renewable Energy

Gas

Oil

Nuclear

Career opportunities for lawyers in the energy sector are as diverse as they are rewarding. The growth of renewable energies and the utilisation of electric vehicles brings new opportunities as well as new challenges. While renewable technologies hold much promise, there are also some disagreements about the placement of renewable power generators with some arguing that they destroy the natural beauty of an environment.

In addition, the power supplied by many renewable energy generators is inconsistent, creating a need for new battery technologies to store power while production is high. The use of electric vehicles, meanwhile, creates new problems in the distribution and supply of energy, creating opportunities for law workers.

Electric cars must use batteries to store energy, which can be hazardous under certain conditions, potentially leading to issues about safety. Many new technologies are often the result of years of scientific research, which is often costly and time intensive for the teams involved, so there is a strong impetus for those involved to maintain the intellectual property rights for these breakthroughs. Comprehensive legal knowledge is required to determine who holds the rights to these technologies.

Global demand for energy is predicted to increase as large economies such as China and India become increasingly energy dependent. There are likely to be disagreements about how this energy is supplied and inequality regarding who has access to energy. This will require an ability to prioritise need while also making a case for development of new technologies which are more productive and energy efficient.

As new technologies are currently being implemented, there will be shifts in productivity as some nations become better equipped to capitalise on renewable resources while others must rely on scarce fossil fuels. As these fossil fuels become increasingly scarce, the need for governments to procure supplies of energy to meet demand will increase, leading to many challenges for energy lawyers.

There is a great need to reduce the pollution from energy production due to their effects on the global ecosystem. The shrinkage of the Arctic ice caps creates an interesting problem regarding which countries have rights to the resources which this region may contain. Also, the pollution and subsequent decline in the environment may create a loss of the wildlife species diversity required to maintain stable ecosystems, which could potentially harm both developed and developing nations.

Replacing ageing infrastructure will become a concern as many power plants reach the end of their useful lives. Policy-makers will need to decide between replacing power plants which rely on fossil fuels and exacerbate environmental problems or utilise renewable energies which may be unreliable or lead to disputes over the locations in which they are situated. Health concerns caused by the pollutants generated from the procurement of energy supplies are also a major problem.

As you can see, the energy law sector offers numerous challenges and opportunities to develop both personally and professionally. The salary in India for an energy lawyer can range from Rs. 12-15k per month at entry level to Rs. 4-5 Lacs per month or more, depending on many factors including the size of the firm they work with, the types of cases worked on and experience levels. In addition to a great salary and many opportunities for development, energy lawyers can also expect to be able to make a real difference to the way that the law is implemented.

Keywords

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