Legal Counsel

Coefficient Giving

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

You would join the legal team as our sixth attorney and report to our General Counsel, Molly Kovite, to help us navigate legal questions and collaborate with staff to generate solutions. Coefficient Giving does highly innovative work that is often without legal precedent; as a result, the legal work requires more creativity and collaboration than most in-house roles. The legal team prides itself on being friendly and efficient. We expect to hire at the Counsel level by default, but we’re open to hiring at the Senior Counsel level for exceptional candidates with especially relevant experience and context on our work. Coefficient Giving is made up of several affiliated organizations that help us carry out our program staff’s giving recommendations. We work with entities including a 501(c)(3) private foundation, a 501(c)(3) public charity, a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization, and donor-advised funds at outside charitable organizations. We make general support and project grants to U.S. nonprofits, international grants requiring additional diligence and reporting, scholarships and research grants, investments in for-profit companies, and contributions to support lobbying and political work. We don’t expect you to be familiar with each area of grantmaking yet, but developing an understanding of the trade-offs between different giving vehicles and helping us come up with creative solutions for routing grants will be a key component of the role.

Requirements

• Clearly communicate legal considerations to non-legal audiences.
• Be practical about risk and don’t default to “worst-case scenario” assessments.
• Be comfortable quickly getting up to speed in unfamiliar areas of law.
• Be flexible and ready to help in many different capacities.
• Have been admitted to the bar in at least one U.S. jurisdiction.
• For Counsel level: at least 7 years of experience practicing in the legal field and at least 2 years of in-house or equivalent experience.
• For Senior Counsel level: more than 7 years of experience practicing in the legal field and at least 2 years of in-house or equivalent experience, along with one or more of the criteria listed under the nice-to-haves.

Nice To Haves

• Political advising experience
• Tax-exempt experience
• Dual U.S./U.K. legal qualifications
• Familiarity with Coefficient Giving’s mission and work
• Prior knowledge or experience with nonprofit law, LLCs, political law, non-traditional philanthropic funding models, intellectual property, lobbying, grants management, and/or international grantmaking

Responsibilities

• Providing legal advice to program and operations teams and developing creative solutions to legal issues faced by staff.
• Resolving a wide range of complex legal questions from grantmaking staff, as well as handling compliance, structural, and contractual issues related to grantmaking.
• Conducting due diligence on international grants.
• Offering advice to the grants team on the optimal vehicle for routing a given grant.
• Drafting custom grant agreements and leading term negotiations or discussions with grantees.
• Creating systems for tracking and complying with reporting requirements to donors.
• Training staff on an array of legal issues, such as ADA compliance, lobbying, risks of grantmaking in China, or data privacy.
• Helping teams shape projects by assessing and communicating about potential sources of legal risk.
• Collaborating with our Government Relations team to provide legal input on our engagement with elected and appointed government officials, as well as grantmaking related to politics and public policy.
• Expanding services available to our grantees, such as guidance on legal entity creation, consultation programs, or information sessions.
• Driving internal legal projects, such as spinning up new entities or drafting policy and guidance documents.
• Supporting corporate compliance tasks, such as recurring board meetings, state-mandated harassment trainings, or wage and hour postings.
• Answering internal HR questions related to hiring processes, offer letters, NDAs, contracts, terminations, and other employee relations issues.
• Proactively seeking out ways to help us achieve our goals by developing an understanding of CG’s broader priorities.

Benefits

• Excellent health insurance (we cover 100% of premiums within the U.S. for you and any eligible dependents) and an employer-funded Health Reimbursement Arrangement for certain other personal health expenses.
• Dental, vision, and life insurance for you and your family.
• Four weeks of PTO recommended per year.
• Four months of fully paid family leave.
• A generous and flexible expense policy — we encourage staff to expense the ergonomic equipment, software, and other services that they need to stay healthy and productive. This policy also includes a productivity benefit, which provides a set amount for staff to expense items that enhance their productivity.
• A continual learning policy that encourages staff to spend time on professional development with related expenses covered.
• Support for remote work — we’ll cover a remote workspace outside your home if you need one, or connect you with a Coefficient Giving coworking hub in your city.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree