Legal Officer - closed

Full time and permanent from London office

Salary: £39,520 full time and permanent from London office

Benefits: 26 days annual leave (plus bank holidays), generous workplace pension, wellbeing support, resources for learning & development, and we can offer a modest relocation fund.

Join us: You’re curious about how technologies affect power and shape the future. You’re an advocate who wants to speak out for change with a voice that is both nuanced and engaging. You want to help build an organisation that is always learning. You want to cooperate closely with colleagues and partners across the world on a tapestry of topics, developing and sharing diverse skill-sets along the way. You’re keen to explore new multidisciplinary and resourceful methods to achieve meaningful change.

Working together: You’ll join an organisation of 25+ people in our Central London office from diverse backgrounds, collaborating, building and learning together. We are delivering our multi-year strategic plan to protect democracy and civic spaces from authoritarian technologies, defend people’s dignity as they seek access and protection, challenge companies who profit from exploitation, and hold governments accountable for the extraordinary powers they amass. We engage stakeholders, institutions, and adversaries with tact and persistence. We target systems-level change and establish safeguards for people across the world so that freedom and privacy will be the foundations of tomorrow’s societies.

ABOUT THIS ROLE

What you’ll be doing

The Legal Officer will conduct advocacy to achieve PI’s goals. This will include legal, policy, research, outreach and public engagement initiatives as PI formulates new and creative ways to demand change globally, including working with our partners across the world.

Particular to this role

In delivering our current strategic plan, the role may include investigating, exposing, monitoring and documenting technologies and technology policies, and practices of different stakeholders including state authorities and private entities

Essentials

Experiences

• Experience working with international human rights standards and/or national rights frameworks. 
• Law degree in any jurisdiction. 
• Admitted to practice in the UK (England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland), as a solicitor or barrister. 
• Understanding of and experience working within a variety of local, national, and international jurisdictions, including those governed by common law or civil law. 
• Experience taking creative approaches to novel legal challenges. 
• Experience in NGOs/human rights organisations or working with national and/or international human rights bodies and mechanisms. 
• Knowledge of legal issues related to data and privacy, including data protection, or the legal concerns raised by techniques such as the use of artificial intelligence, automated decision-making and profiling. 
• Passion for technology and its interaction with human rights. Proven track record of communicating complex issues to diverse audiences. 
• Experience in engaging in strategic advocacy regarding conduct of state or non-state actors. 
• Experience in designing and delivering learning and education activities and content, i.e. trainings, workshops, etc.

Skills

• Ability to work with and manage relationships with partner organisations, coalitions and counsel.
• Proactive and self-motivated, capable of working unsupervised and taking responsibility for managing relationships with key partners, stakeholders, and adversaries.
• Capable to deliver projects, working collaboratively through delegation and coordination, and incorporate critical reflections into future planning.
• Thoughtful interpersonal skills for engaging with colleagues and stakeholders from experientially, demographically, cognitively, and culturally diverse backgrounds.
• Demonstrable excellent written and oral communication skills, with attention to detail and audiences.

Desirable experience and skills

• Knowledge of and experience advocating for the protection of social, economic and cultural rights.
• Record of stakeholder engagement, promoting or enabling meaningful participation of communities and civil society in advocacy.
• Deft at speaking publicly, including with the media and at conferences and high-level stakeholder meetings.
• Experience in identifying, researching, monitoring and documenting technologies and technology-related policies and practices of state actors, companies, and other third-parties.
• Willing and able to travel internationally.
• Fluency in a language other than English, with one of the other 5 UN languages (Spanish, French, Russian, Arabic and Chinese) an asset.

HOW TO APPLY

We want to encourage applicants with diverse experiences, backgrounds and talents. And you might be reading this page and thinking ‘they won’t want someone with my unusual background’. Well, you’d be wrong. Each of us here have followed our unique paths. PI is built on genuine diversity, and we would encourage you to apply if you think you can meet the criteria of the role based on your life experiences.

To apply, please send:

• a CV (not more than two pages)
• a covering letter (not more than two pages)

The closing date for applications is Sunday, 21 January 2024 at 11:59pm GMT.

Please send the requested material in one email to recruitment@privacyinternational.org. Only complete applications will be considered.

The candidates who we choose to interview will be contacted by the end of the day on 29 January 2024.

Interviews will take place between 1 February and 6 February 2024 (not including the weekend) – please reserve these days for a possible interview, which can be arranged in person or as a video conference.

We may conduct a second round of interviews, which will be decided only after the first round of interviews takes place.

For information about how Privacy International will use your data during recruitment please see our policy.