Director, Legal Affairs

Job Description

Position Overview:

As head of the legal business unit, this position leads the Legal team, performs complex legal work for Room to Read, and involves close association and coordination with senior management. The Director, Legal Affairs is part of the Legal and Finance team and works across all functional departments and 25 global Room to Read entities. The Director is the primary person responsible for managing legal issues faced by Room to Read globally. Working closely with the management team, global colleagues and outside counsel, the Director manages contract and regulatory compliance, helps develop and implement global policies and procedures, provides research on and coordination of establishing operations in new jurisdictions, ensures compliance with the organization’s governing structures (US and international), advises on global employment issues, takes lead in identifying and addressing potential legal issues and risks for current activities, operations and strategic initiatives and manages litigation. The Director, Legal Affairs reports to the Chief Financial Officer and supervises the Legal Affairs staff. Interaction is required with management, staff, and outside parties.

Responsibilities:

• Provide legal representation to the Organization, support the work of the Organization and manage the full range of legal strategies and responsibilities for Room to Read’s 25 legal entities in 19 jurisdictions
• Set the strategy and goals for the Legal team in alignment with the larger organizational goals
• Lead complex legal projects that span legal, business, and functional boundaries (e.g., cross geographies, subject matter areas, jurisdictions, organizations and business models)
• Provide counsel to staff in all departments on a variety of complex issues. Identify, research, and analyze legal issues that affect the Organization and its activities at the local, state, federal and international levels associated with the Organization’s activities, ongoing operations, and strategic initiatives, including but not limited to, revenue diversification, and jurisdictional and programmatic expansion. Develop and implement staff-friendly plans, systems and procedures
• Develop and provide trainings on legal issues, processes and policies to multi-level audiences in all departments in Country Offices and Global Offices
• Supervise Legal Affairs staff and oversee a department that can appropriately support Room to Read utilizing a mix of paid staff, interns, paid outside counsel, pro bono outside counsel, volunteers and support from other non-profit organizations
• Develop and manage the legal department budget
• Special projects and other duties, as assigned

Qualifications:

Required

• Minimum of 10 years of experience including significant professional experience as a transactional attorney
• JD from an accredited institution with active bar membership, preferably California.
• Experience advising senior management of complex, international organizations
• Strong analytical skills and demonstrated ability to understand complex legal concepts and analysis and translate those to non-lawyers to create practical processes, guidance and training
• Prior success building relationships and communicating with diverse groups of people

• Demonstrable legal analytical skills, general business acumen and expertise in several of the core areas of work listed below:
• Compliance and rules applicable to non-profit, charitable organizations in the US and in foreign jurisdictions
• Contract review and management in the US and in foreign jurisdictions
• Employment law
• Corporate governance
• Enterprise wide risk mitigation
• Intellectual property, content management, licensing

• Strong project management skills with attention to detail and accuracy
• Strong teamwork and client service skills; experience exercising influence and managing change while having an open and inclusive tone; solution-oriented

• Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced, growth-oriented global or regional organization
• Comfort with ambiguity and the ability to work through challenging situations
• Occasional flexibility in working hours to accommodate Room to Read’s international office locations
• Administratively self-sufficient with demonstrated skill with Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint

Strongly preferred:

• Expertise in working with non-profits
• In-house experience
• International experience

To be successful as a member of the Room to Read team, you will also:

• Have a passion for our mission and a strong desire to impact a dynamic nonprofit organization
• Be an innovative and creative thinker; you’re not afraid to try something new and inspire others to do so
• Have a very high level of personal and professional integrity and trustworthiness
• Have a strong work ethic and require minimal direction
• Work well independently as well as part of a team
• Thrive in a fast-paced and fun environment

Compensation:

Room to Read offers a competitive salary with excellent benefits. Benefits include health, dental, vision, long-term disability insurance, life insurance, commuter benefits and a 401K match. The non-monetary compensation includes a unique opportunity to be part of an innovative, meaningful, fun, and rapidly growing organization that is changing transforming the lives of millions of children in developing countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education.

Application Procedure:

Please send a cover letter, resume and Applicant Identification Forms (please follow the links below to access the forms) by email , with “Director, Legal Affairs_DE” in the subject line, (no letters, calls, faxes, or drop-ins) to hiring@roomtoread.org. While all applications will be carefully considered, we regret that we are unable to send personalized responses to all applicants due to high applicant volume. Applications are accepted until the position is filled.

Links to Applicant Identification Forms:

Applicant Identification Form 1
Applicant Identification Form 2

Applicant Identification Form 3

Room to Read is proud to be an equal opportunity employer committed to identifying and developing
the skills and leadership of people from diverse backgrounds.

About the Organization

Room to Read is a global organization transforming the lives of millions of children in low-income countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. Founded in 2000 on the belief that World Change Starts with Educated Children®, our innovative model focuses on deep, systemic transformation within schools in low-income countries during two time periods which are most critical in a child’s schooling: early primary school for literacy acquisition and secondary school for girls’ education. We work in collaboration with local communities, partner organizations and governments to develop literacy skills and a habit of reading among primary school children and ensure girls can complete secondary school with the skills necessary to negotiate key life decisions. By focusing on the quality of education provided within the communities and ensuring these outcomes are measured, we have created a model that can be replicated, localized and sustained by governments. Room to Read has benefited 10 million children across 17,000 communities in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Nepal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zambia, and aims to reach 15 million children by 2020.