M-KOPA Solar Legal Officer Job

Job Description

Position Title: Legal Officer

Location: Nairobi HQ

Position Start: ASAP

Reporting to: Director for Legal, Administration and External Affairs

Overall Purpose: Provide legal and administrative support to Director for Legal, Administration and External Affairs covering all aspects of legal work including, but not limited to, Contracts, Terms of Business Agreements, Litigation work and general legal advice.

About M-KOPA Solar: M-KOPA Solar, headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, is the global leader of “pay-as-you-go” energy for offgrid customers.

Since its commercial launch in October 2012, M-KOPA has connected more than 150,000 homes in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to solar power, and is now adding over 500 new homes each day.

The success of M-KOPA (M= mobile, KOPA= to borrow) stems from making solar products  affordable to low-income households on a pay-per-use installment plan. 

 

Customers acquire solar  systems for a small deposit and then purchase daily usage “credits” for K.Shs. 40, or less than the price of traditional kerosene lighting. 

After one year of payments customers own their solar systems outright and can upgrade to more power.

All revenues are collected in real-time via mobile money systems (such as M-PESA in Kenya) and embedded GSM sensors in each solar system allow M-KOPA to monitor real time performance and regulate usage based upon payments. 

This connected design means that M-KOPA is processing vast amounts of data (i.e. over 10,000 mobile payments per day) via the company’s proprietary cloud platform, M-KOPAnet.

As of January 2015 M-KOPA employs over 500 full time staff across East Africa and sells through a network of 1,000 direct sales agents. It has also commenced licensing its technology to partners in other markets. 

M-KOPA has been recognised for its pioneering business mode and scale, notably winning the 2015 Zayed Future Energy Prize, being selected as the top New Energy Pioneer at the 2014 Bloomberg New Energy Finance awards and earning the 2013 FT/IFC Excellence in Sustainable Finance Award.

Role Profile

Key Accountabilities

Assisting in creating and amending contracts

Undertaking legal research using on-line resources

Maintaining the register of signed contracts including making scanned copies of signed contracts

Preparing final versions of contracts for signature

Preparation and Review of Contracts

Facilitate the execution of legal documentation

Provide general assistance to other internal business clients with legal related queries

Liaising with internal clients in a timely, professional and courteous manner

Dealing with all usual aspects of legal office administration and file management

Liaising with external legal counsel providing legal services to the Company

Ensuring compliance with statutory and other legal requirements

Monitoring of litigation by or against the Company

Provide advice on intellectual property matters

Provide other general legal advice as required

Incumbent Requirements

Education: Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) Degree from a reputable University
 

Professional: Current practicing certificate
 

Experience:

5 years’ experience of working within a commercial legal environment

Knowledge / Skills:

A good standard of written and spoken English

Good MS Word skills including ability to mark-up docs using Tracked Changes, use Compare and Merge to check differences between two versions of a document and formatting of documents.

Excellent legal research skills – familiar with using legal resources

Dynamic and driven individual with initiative and a ‘can-do’ attitude

Excellent organizational skills

Ability to prioritize to work to deadlines

Excellent attention to detail

Effective oral and written communication skills

Ability to work well under pressure and time constraints

Self-driven and able to work with minimum supervision

Beneficial

Experience working for an In-House legal team

Exposure in a Commercial Department of a busy law firm

Exposure to Intellectual Property Law

Remuneration: Competitive covering a monthly salary, performance bonus and medical benefits reflective of the candidate’s experience and skills.

How to Apply

To apply, send an updated detailed copy of your CV and a cover letter expressing why you feel you would be an excellent candidate for the role to careers@m-kopa.com with the subject EV-ILO-515

Please Note: Due to the large number of applications received by us, we regret that you will not be contacted unless you are short listed for the post and invited for an interview. 

Therefore, if you have not heard from M-KOPA within 4 weeks of the date of the deadline your application, you should assume that you have not been successful on this occasion.

This measure has been taken in the interests of efficiency and cost effectiveness and we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.