Legal Strategist, Africa

Job Title: Legal Strategist, Africa

Location: Kenya (remote working through the Employee of Record)

Remuneration: KSh 6.06M – KSh 8.45M depending on experience. FILE salaries and benefits are benchmarked appropriately to the location where our staff are based.

Hours: Full-Time or Part-Time Pro Rata (5 or 4 days per week)

The Role

FILE seeks a knowledgeable African lawyer and legal strategist to apply their lived experience and expertise toward achieving FILE’s priorities in Africa. This role requires deep understanding of how African civil society can drive impact on climate, nature, and justice through domestic, regional and global legal strategies.

Working with and reporting to FILE’s Regional Director for its Africa portfolio, the role will include developing and maintaining relationships with FILE’s African partners.*

Key Responsibilities

Each of these is conducted in close collaboration with relevant colleagues across the organisation:

• Informing and consulting with the ecosystem on climate, nature, and justice priorities in Africa - including sub-objectives on the energy transition; nature, land justice and livelihoods; and climate loss and damage;
• Identifying potential new, and supporting existing grantees, shaping grant-making priorities, and stewarding grantees through the grant-making process;
• Developing and maintaining external partnerships and networks with partners and practitioners in Africa, and convening meetings of partners to discuss key African priorities.

Key Outcomes

• FILE’s strategy for Africa continues to be informed by accurate information and cutting-edge strategic analysis.
• FILE colleagues and external partners have a trusted thought partner and collaborator on implementing climate, nature, and justice priorities in Africa.
• FILE’s partnerships in Africa are supported and guided with cutting-edge legal strategic expertise.
• High quality convening(s) of African civil society and relevant legal practitioners and peers, to catalyse innovation and strengthen connectivity.
• An engaged group of funders, ready to deepen their support for our partners’ work in Africa.
  

About you

We know that long lists of criteria can be discouraging and that some candidates will not apply for a role unless they feel they are 100% qualified. If you feel you meet at least some of the essential criteria, we still encourage you to apply.

We also recognise that skills and experience can be gained in unexpected places, so we welcome applications from candidates who feel they have relevant skills for the role, gained from a wide range of professional, lived and learned experiences.

Essential criteria

• • A sound and in-depth understanding of the operation and resourcing of African legal ecosystems, networks and institutions. While not essential, most likely this will require:
    • 
      a law degree from an African university. A post-graduate qualification in law or another relevant discipline would be beneficial, but is not essential; and
    • 
      meaningful post-qualification experience - in legal practice as attorney or advocate in an African country, or in legal practice as attorney or advocate in an African country as well as relevant work (for example in an African public interest law organisation). Some experience in grantmaking or grant management would be beneficial, but is not essential.
  • A strong, demonstrable commitment to environmental and climate justice, protecting the environment, reforming environmental, corporate and financial governance to deliver climate justice, and prioritising the rights of communities most affected by climate change and environmental harms.
  • A sound knowledge of the Constitutional and statutory framework for environmental and climate governance in at least one African country, with some knowledge of other African legal systems.
  • Experience of and expertise in developing and/or delivering legal and litigation strategies on climate, environmental, and/or human rights grounds that respond to the needs of affected communities. Experience in litigating in one of Africa’s regional courts would be beneficial, but is not essential.
  • Demonstrated experience in linking legal strategies to effective communications, advocacy/campaign, and/or movement strategies to advance systemic change.
  • Experience of building and/or maintaining external networks, bringing expert practitioners and/or civil society together.
  • Cognisance of funder positionality and responsibility within civil society spaces, and ability to navigate complex individual and institutional power dynamics.
  • Experience of project management, prioritisation and planning, and ability to work with and across other teams at FILE
  • An ability to work equitably and effectively with multiple perspectives and build trust with diverse partners.
  • A willingness to travel from time to time – approximately four times a year - to meet FILE staff and partners.
  • An ability to work flexibly as part of a team spread across many time zones, which will involve some meetings outside of standard working hours.
  • A professional standard of written and spoken English; fluency in Kiswahili or another prominent African language. Fluency in French will be an advantage, but is not
    
    
    * Precise job title will be agreed taking into account qualifications and legal requirements. The precise balance of work will be determined in part by the expertise and network of the successful candidate, alongside the expertise and networks of others in the FILE team, and may fluctuate over time.

About FILE

The Foundation for International Law for the Environment (FILE) is a not-for-profit philanthropic organisation working to accelerate legal action on climate change.

Through grant-making and in-house legal expertise, we empower our partners to deliver strategic, innovative legal interventions and we support lawyers in their own countries to bring their own cases.

Legal action can unlock the systemic changes in finance, policy and social systems needed to protect all of us from climate change. The power of the law is both direct (changing policy and practice) and indirect (signalling the wider shifts taking place across these systems).

FILE is a ‘regrantor’ - this means we do not bring legal action in our own name. We receive grants from our philanthropic donors and make onwards grants to partners who align with FILE’s charitable aims and purposes. We do not seek to make any profit from our activities either in a relevant financial year or in the longer term.

Working for FILE

FILE is a collaborative community of individuals who share a passion for climate, nature, and justice. We bring together knowledge and experience to support our mission.

Our people are empowered to lead their work both individually and as part of a wider team in order to make impactful change. As a relatively young organisation with the ambitious mission to change global systems, our roles are ideally suited to those who are strategic, innovative and collaborative, and open to growing in line with the Foundation.

FILE is committed to challenging systemic injustice. Our ability to do so is strengthened by the diversity of our partners and staff. Our mission, work and impact is global, with staff and partners from across the world and a range of lived experiences. We are actively working to create a culture where colleagues feel welcomed, heard and supported to succeed and thrive.

How FILE supports its staff

FILE is committed to creating a workplace that supports our staff to do their best work and develop professionally. FILE offers a generous annual leave policy and additional time-off work to support wellbeing. Amongst other benefits, FILE offers private healthcare, enhanced maternity, paternity and shared parental leave, enhanced sick leave, flexibility working remotely and also abroad and a matching contribution to a pension scheme.

Applications

Action Appointments is a specialist recruitment agency based in South Africa with 31 years of experience, specialising in recruitment for NGOs for niche positions. Since this is such an important role at FILE, we have enlisted their assistance to run this recruitment process.

They will be handling all further liaison with candidates directly for this position. Please send any queries about the process to callum@actionappointments.co.za and visit the link below to apply for this role.

Representation and Culture

FILE recognises the under-representation of historically marginalized communities and individuals in climate, nature and philanthropy spaces. We are committed to developing an organization that represents the world we are looking to protect and building a culture that supports such.

In doing so, FILE is committed to building policies and practices that ensure no current or prospective employee is discriminated based on disability, sex, sexual orientation, pregnancy and maternity, race or ethnicity, religion or belief, gender identity, or marriage and civil partnership.