Vinson & Elkins has expanded its energy transition team by hiring Bracewell partner Jenny Speck, who advises clients on tax transactions for renewable energy projects, a hot area for the Houston-founded firm since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

She joined Vinson & Elkins’ growing renewable energy team on Monday as a partner in Houston in the energy transition and tax practices.

Under the IRA, renewable energy developers can obtain tax credits they can transfer and monetize. Vinson & Elkins lawyers have closed 12 transactions valued in total more than $1 billion in transferred tax credits stemming from wind, solar, storage, renewable natural gas (RNG) and nuclear assets.

According to the firm, clients include sponsors and developers of clean energy assets including Swift Current Energy; traditional tax equity investors including Wells Fargo, JPMorgan, and State Street; and corporate taxpayers on purchases of credits, including Vitol, numerous food and beverage companies, hospitality companies, traditional energy companies, and financial services companies.

Sean Moran, one of the leaders of the Vinson & Elkins energy transition practice, wrote in a press release that Speck has “commercial sensibility” that clients will value.

“She knows how to get deals done and is adept at calibrating tax advice to a company’s strategic objectives,” Moran wrote.

Speck has worked on renewable projects including onshore and offshore wind, solar, combined heat and power, biogas property, carbon capture, hydrogen and clean fuel credit projects.

At Vinson & Elkins, Speck will work with the firm’s renewable energy team, which includes Moran and partners Lauren Collins and Jorge Medina. Speck said she knows them, and moved to Vinson & Elkins to work collaboratively with others lawyers working in tax credits.

“It was a great platform of like-minded tax professionals. This area is just booming right now,” she said.

Speck said she worked across the table from Collins on a transaction earlier this year, and she got to see how the team operates.

“I admired the team’s approach,” she said. “Very efficient.”

Moran and Collins moved to Vinson & Elkins in 2021 from Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as part of a six-lawyer renewable energy finance team in Los Angeles and New York. Earlier this year, Medina joined the firm in Los Angeles, coming from Shearman & Sterling.

Speck declined to identify her clients, but said renewable energy is an exciting area of the law, She said she has a passion for clean energy and clean fuels because earlier in her career, she worked at Navigator CO2 Ventures in Houston as senior manager of tax and regulatory compliance.

“I fell into this area years ago before it was cool, and now it is cool,” she said.

A spokesperson for Bracewell did not immediately provide a comment on Speck’s departure.