After more than three years on the client-side with Pattern Energy, a Houston alternative energy provider, Sarah Ridel has agreed to join Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the firm where she began her career.
Ridel will be an energy and infrastructure partner in the Houston office, focusing her practice on transmission projects, renewable energy transactions and infrastructure financing, according to a Skadden release.
Since April 2023, Ridel served as assistant vice president and assistant general counsel at Pattern Energy Group, advising the company on complex development and finance matters involving wind, solar, transmission and energy storage projects.
While at Pattern Ridel was involved in more a dozen transactions, including the $11 billion financing of the SunZia wind and its 550-mile transmission across New Mexico and Arizona, and the $1.7 billion Western Spirit project in central New Mexico.
Ridel began with Skadden in 2014 as a summer associate while attending Harvard Law School, taking a job with the firm in Washington, D.C., when she graduated in 2015.
“I’m thrilled to return to Skadden, where I began my legal career, and continue working with colleagues who have helped shape the country’s energy landscape,” Ridel said.
“With unprecedented load growth, emerging technologies and renewed interest in transmission development, this is one of the most dynamic periods the energy sector has seen in a generation. The firm’s depth across transmission, solar, wind, energy storage and other generation types — combined with its track record of closing groundbreaking infrastructure transactions — makes it the ideal platform to help clients seize the opportunities ahead.”
AREAS OF FOCUS
Ridel advises developers, sponsors, lenders and investors on energy and infrastructure development and finance matters, according to the release. She has significant experience handling build-transfer transactions, power purchase agreements, construction financings, back-leverage financings, tax equity bridge loans and private placements. She also has extensive experience with transmission projects, including several of the most significant transmission and transmission- related developments in the United States.
EDUCATION
Harvard University (JD, 2015)
University of Texas (BA, 2008)