In-House Legal Counsel

The Centre for Effective Altruism (CEA) is seeking a lawyer to help us to innovate quickly and manage risk as we grow. This is a senior role, reporting to the Director of Operations.

CEA aims to improve the world by supporting the growth and development of the effective altruism community. Effective altruism is a growing social movement dedicated to using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible.

CEA is also the fiscal sponsor of 80,000 Hours, Giving What We Can, EA Funds, Longview Philanthropy, Governance of AI and the Forethought Foundation. Through fiscal sponsorship we enable unusually impactful organisations to achieve their objectives efficiently.

We are growing quickly, and need an in-house legal counsel to manage risks as we grow, help us to internationalize further, manage routine legal work like governance, and to help us to figure out creative solutions to further our work.

About the role

You will work closely with the Director of Operations and liaise directly with a network of external legal advisors globally.

Fiscal sponsorship / Incubation

You will help ensure the legal entity continues to be well structured to support a growing number of fiscally sponsored projects, this will include:

• Setting up and maintaining the legal relationship with fiscally sponsored projects
• Agreeing service level agreements with the organisations we provide a service for
• Helping temporarily fiscally sponsored projects to register as independent entities
• Maintaining a database of legal templates needed for standard business and adapting templates when needed
• Ongoing legal support to fiscally sponsored projects as they grow

Governance

• Ensuring board resolutions are actioned and recorded where appropriate
• Reviewing third party contracts
• Resolving legal questions as they arise
• Providing input to the annual risk assessment
• Advising the board on governance issues such as COIs

International Structure

• Establishing legal relationships with additional national EA entities
• Working with overseas legal advisors to ensure relationships/license agreements are appropriate for the international structure
• Establishing new entities in strategic locations where CEA is not currently registered

Data protection

• In house data protection advice regarding data sharing and GDPR compliance
• Provide legal input on the organisation’s privacy policy

Day to day legal matters

• Ensure the appropriate trademarks are registered
• Answering internal HR questions related to offer letters, NDAs, contracts, and other employee relations issues
• Assisting in property acquisitions/leases - liaising with solicitors
• Legal support in immigration/visa processes
• Managing our relationship with outside legal counsel.

Who is suited for this role?

You might be a good fit if you:

• Have a depth of previous legal experience: You are a qualified lawyer/solicitor with at least 5 years experience either as an in-house counsel or with law firm in the UK or USA.
• Are exceptionally organised: You will be managing a range of projects and relationships. You will need to be organised to stay on top of them all.
• Diligent and dependable: You will be dealing with sensitive matters such that you must operate with a high degree of confidentiality and discretion.
• Have great interpersonal and communication skills: You will need to be confident while communicating with a variety of high level stakeholders, both verbally and in writing.
• Excellent attention to detail: Operations work is often fast-paced. Mistakes can be costly, so it's really important for you to pay close attention to details.
• Excited about providing excellent service: You’ll treat stakeholders across the fiscally sponsored organisations as “valued customers,” who we are supporting by providing an excellent level of support.
• Strong alignment with EA principles: A lot of the high level decision making at CEA requires thinking through decisions using EA principles, having a good understanding of EA rationale will stand you in a good stead for this position.

Preferred, but not required:

• You have experience with charity law in the UK or US

Salaries, benefits, and advantages

This is a full-time role, reporting to Joshua Axford, Director of Operations ideally based in the UK although remote candidates will be considered. CEA is also open to sponsoring a visa for the successful candidate if relocation is required.

Your starting salary range is £75,000 to £100,000 pa (for a role based in Oxford) depending on prior experience and location. There may be flexibility in salary for exceptional candidates with significant experience. You can find out more about our approach to compensation here.

Benefits include health, dental, and vision insurance, flexible work hours, a £5,000 annual professional development allowance, a £5,000 mental health support allowance, extended parental leave, ergonomic equipment, 10% pension contribution, 25 days of paid vacation, and more.

Application

We’ll consider applications as we receive them. We are looking for someone to start as soon as possible.

After considering your written application, we may invite you to complete a short trial task followed by further interviews. We will invite finalists to provide references and participate in a multi-day paid work trial.

We are happy to consider applicants from overseas and may consider sponsorship if needed. CEA serves a global community, and our team works with people and organizations all over the world. We are committed to fostering a culture of inclusion, and we encourage individuals with diverse backgrounds and experiences to apply. We especially encourage applications from women, gender minorities, and people of color who are enthusiastic about contributing to our mission. We are an equal opportunity employer.

If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, or have any other questions about applying, please contact callum@centreforeffectivealtruism.org.