Associate General Counsel, World Vision Monrovia, United States

With over 70 years of experience, our focus is on helping the most vulnerable children overcome poverty and experience fullness of life. We help children of all backgrounds, even in the most dangerous places, inspired by our Christian faith.

Come join our 34,000+ staff working in nearly 100 countries and share the joy of transforming vulnerable children’s life stories!

Key Responsibilities:

MAJOR RESPONSIBILITIES

Provide high-quality and timely legal advice to WVI clients and affiliated entities.  Specific legal issues will be drawn from the following overall list, and mixed with geographic and WV department responsibilities, as determined in consultation with the General Counsel.  In general, the job holder is expected to address complex and unusual problems or situations with broad impact on WV and find solutions, and also proactively anticipate and/or identify significant challenges to WV operations raised by legal issues and recommend approaches to address such challenges.

– Monitor the overall legal status of WVI (including its foreign offices), and its subsidiaries and affiliates (including cooperation with other WV entities’ legal departments and/or outside counsel), to ensure their compliance with legal requirements and minimization of legal risks.

–  Advise management on how to keep the corporation within the law and minimize legal risks while devising acceptable methods to accomplish corporate objectives.

– Provide legal advice and services to senior leadership and, as assigned, to the WVI Board and Council, and to subsidiary or affiliated boards and senior leadership, in order to support decision-making and policy development.  This may include assisting the boards (and their committees) regarding legal requirements, policies, articles of incorporation and bylaws provisions and revisions, resolutions, attending board and committee meetings, and drafting and/or reviewing minutes of board and committee meetings.

– Advise WVI senior management and National Directors/staff regarding significant legal matters including registration requirements, government protocols, contracts and personnel issues, and support WV offices with requests for legal documents (powers of attorney, registration certificates, etc.).

– Advise on formation, governance, dissolution, and merger or acquisition of legal entities, and relationships between related entities.

– Provide legal advice on maintaining tax exempt charitable status for WVI and related entities (where such status is desired), and the impact and implications of such status on ongoing operations.

– Advise on other tax aspects, including corporate income tax, employer tax obligations, VAT and other transaction taxes, and potentially global tax strategies involving transfer pricing rules.

– Provide legal advice and assistance on matters related to human resources, including employment contracts, policy, terminations, investigations and immigration issues.

– Formulate strategy in litigation, including selection and coordination of outside counsel, and support significant litigation matters with document review, identification and preparation of witnesses, formulating arguments, etc.

– Monitor legal information and developments which are or may be applicable to WV.

– Supervise Paralegal/Legal Assistant and/or outside counsel in the monitoring and filing of various regulatory matters, including trademark registrations, corporate registrations in various states or countries, immigration petitions for WV employees, etc.

– Provide advice and legal services as required to protect WV’s intellectual property rights worldwide, including trademark and copyright registrations, licensing and infringement issues.

– Advise on legal aspects of financial matters, including banking arrangements, global treasury cash flow and currency exchange issues, procurement issues, and microfinance operations, which often involve complex borrowing and lending arrangements.

– Advise on legal aspects of information technology issues, including licensing, contracts, access and security, forensic investigations, etc.

– Advise on legal aspects of data privacy matters, including regulatory compliance, access and security issues, and breach response efforts.

– Advise on sanctions imposed by the US and other governments on particular countries or groups, including anti-terrorism laws, export controls, blocked parties, etc.

– Advise on legal aspects of fundraising and marketing, including general charitable fundraising regulation and contracts with fundraising partners, and also all aspects of grant donors (including advising on grant regulations and eligibility, review of grant agreements, working with sub and prime grantees, handling incidents and disputes in the grant program, etc.)

– Provide support and legal advice for investigations of various types throughout the world, including allegations of fraud, workplace misconduct, abuse of beneficiaries, security incidents, etc, by assisting in investigation strategies, reviewing draft reports, assessing findings, advising on followup actions, etc.  In some situations this may include serving as a principal investigator, or supervising an external investigator.

– Support various risk management functions and processes, including providing legal review and advice on all lines of global insurance coverage (including processing of claims), reviewing draft internal audit reports and advising the audit function, and reviewing risk registers and risk appetites coordinated by the Enterprise Risk Management function.

– Identify and work with outside legal counsel throughout the world.  Attempt to keep legal costs at a minimum (including seeking pro bono support), consistent with the achievement of our objectives.

– Provide training for staff on various aspects of legal issues.

KNOWLEDGE/QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE ROLE

Required Professional Experience

• Solid foundation in fundamental legal theories, ability to identify problems and legal issues and provide practical advice to in-house clients, good negotiating and research skills, as well as effective written and oral communication skills.
• Experience in dealing with outside counsel and general knowledge of international affairs.
• Sensitivity in and exposure to cross-cultural situations.

• Required Education, training, license, registration, and certification
• US Juris Doctorate, or foreign equivalent.
• At least 5 years’ experience as a practicing attorney, with at least some of that in a major global law firm and engaged in cross-border, multijurisdictional matters.
• Admitted to the California Bar and licensed to practice law in California, or registered as In-House Counsel under Rule 9.46, or as a Registered Foreign Legal Consultant under Rule 9.44 is strongly preferred. Exceptional candidates admitted to the bar in other jurisdictions will also be considered.

Preferred Knowledge and Qualifications

• Experience in a non-US legal system, particularly the Civil Law system.
• Exposure/experience with countries in the developing world.
• Experience both in law firms and corporate in-house legal departments.
• Experience with nonprofit organisations.

Travel and/or Work Environment Requirement

• Ability and willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 20% of the time.
• Attend & participate in weekly chapel and daily devotional meetings.

Language Requirements

• Fluent in written and spoken English.
• Fluent in written and spoken Business Spanish

NB: For positions filled in the United States, the typical salary range for this role is USD $140,000 to $175,000. Ranges are based on various factors including the labor market, job type, job level, internal equity, and budget. Exact salary offers will be determined by factors such as the candidate’s skills, qualifications, experience, and geographic location.

Applicant Types Accepted:

Local and International Applicants (IA’s) Accepted