Legal Advisor – Lebanon At Legal Action Worldwide

BACKGROUND ABOUT LAW

LAW is an independent, non-profit organisation comprised of human rights lawyers and jurists working in fragile and conflict affected areas in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia. LAW has a particular focus on gender equality and sexual and gender-based violence, the rule of law and accountability and transformative justice – working to bring justice to those who need it most.

LAW’s portfolio includes multiple ground-breaking cases, which utilise creative legal strategies on behalf of victims and survivors from some of the most challenging contexts, representing more than 1000 clients.

LAW’s ground-breaking work has received international media coverage, including in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, Al-Jazeera, BBC News, France24, The Independent, Voice of America, Huffington Post and Foreign Policy.

Our goal istoempower victims and survivors to identify and articulate their rights and their justice needs, reduce impunity and increase accountability, supporting victims to advocate for victim-centred truth seeking and justice and assist them to select the appropriate mechanisms; as well as set the standard for a creative, inclusive and responsive justice approaches in addressing sexual violence against the most vulnerable in fragile and conflict affected contexts.

The work will be diverse and challenging but if you are looking for your next challenge and the opportunity to make a real difference, then this position is right for you.

The Legal Advisor will be a self-starter that can help deliver the highest quality services to victims of international crimes and human rights violations. Working closely with LAW’s Programme Manager and Senior Management Team, they will provide critical legal support to humanitarian aid workers on the frontline of international crises in the Middle East as part of a new regional, multi-NGO protection mechanism. As part of that role, they will also gather and anlayse data for the purpose of designing a more comprehensive package of legal support for aid workers, Wider responsibilities include undertaking fieldwork to build trial-ready case files, assisting with the development and implementation of strategic litigation, producing hard hitting evidence-based reports, and increasing visibility and advocacy of the organisation and programmme.

MORE ABOUT THIS WORK

Where? This position will be based in Beirut, Lebanon.

Salary: Competitive salary will be offered.

Role Overview:

The Legal Advisor will provide overall support with project implementation, monitoring, advocacy and fundraising, including strategic litigation, preparing case files, and facilitating capacity building of local lawyers and humanitarian organisations. The post holder will perform duties in accordance with the responsibilities outlined below:

Programmatic

• Provide legal support to humanitarian aid workers in the Middle East affected by legal issues (such as but not limited to arrest/detention, threats of false criminal proceedings, abuse of administrative processes in the line of duty;
• Compile information from cases received to build an understanding of needs of aid workers, capacities of local lawyers, assistance received (or not), legal provisions of country in question, etc;
• Carry out analysis of legal response to aid workers based on information gathered from engagement with affected persons, and develop recommendations for improving the response;
• Contribute to development of strategic litigation cases responding to survivors’ priorities, including identifying appropriate legal mechanisms, drafting creative legal arguments and submissions, stakeholder mapping and advocacy, etc;
• Support the building of casefiles for strategic litigation, including legal research and drafting, open-source research, and evidence-gathering as appropriate;
• Conduct fieldwork including taking high quality statements victims in line with a victim-centred, trauma-informed and gender-sensitive approach;
• Develop high quality legal outputs including submissions, reports, position papers, legal briefs, complex concept notes;
• Develop and maintain strong relationships with key actors including; governments, partners, community groups, INGO’s and the UN**;**
• Provide technical expertise and supervision to partners and lawyers and develop capacity building;
• Regularly update on relevant contextual development (political, economic, judicial, security, etc) and project activities;
• Support the monitoring of project implementation, coordinate the work of partners, and reporting on indicators.

Advocacy and Communications:

• Support the implementation of the advocacy strategy and design products that can be shared with both internal and external stakeholders, based on evidence gathered from the programme;
• Develop the profile and visibility of the programme and represent LAW on national and regional platforms;
• Coordinate and ensure that website and social media content related to the programmes is up to-date and engaging audiences;
• Contribute to LAW’s advocacy tools, including factsheets and the LAW Annual Report.

Fundraising:

• Identify potential fundraising opportunities applicable to the programmes and as per LAW priorities and policy;
• Contribute to drafting of concept notes, proposals and donor reports;
• Draft donor briefings to highlight LAW’s projects’ impact;
• Prepare presentations and talking points as required.

About You

• Bachelor’s degree in law and/or human rights or related field of law
• Minimum 5 years direct and demonstrated experience in international humanitarian law, human rights law, justice and accountability, criminal law;
• License to practice law in at least one jurisdiction
• Demonstrated experience providing legal information, assistance or representation to vulnerable individuals is essential;
• Experience working across insecure or conflict-affected and fragile environments; and demonstrated understanding of protection challenges within the region;
• Exceptional written and oral communication skills in English, and Arabic ;
• Track record of research and drafting skills;
• Ability to manage a variable workload and meeting tight deadlines;
• Ability to manage relationships at all levels,
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office Suite and strong technical literacy;
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills and ability to work on own initiative and independently
• Excellent observation, active listening, and analytical skills with ability to make sound judgment.

Preferred requirements:

• Demonstrated experience conducting trauma-informed interviews with vulnerable victims and survivors;
• Demonstrated experience in fundraising for international donor funded legal projects in complex or conflict affected environment and liaising with donors preferred.