Sovereign Debt Forum Research Assistant - Temporary
About The Position
The Sovereign Debt Forum's #PublicDebtIsPublic initiative (#PDIP) is dedicated to ensuring public accountability for public debt. This initiative aims to make information on government borrowing and lending, including sovereign debt contracts, legal frameworks, and capacity development tools, readily available and free to the public. The #PDIP initiative seeks to change debt transparency norms and practices, promoting the public disclosure of legal and financial terms of public debt in an accessible, intelligible, and comparable format. The core project is the creation of a centralized data repository for open-sourced sovereign debt data and documentation. This repository will include fully searchable, term-by-term tagged sovereign debt contracts, domestic laws and regulations governing borrowing and disclosure, and an interactive capacity-building platform with courses, tutorials, legal analysis, and guidance materials. This resource will serve as a shared source of authoritative information for governments, civil society, and creditors. The pilot phase of #PDIP, launching in 2025, is a joint development by the Sovereign Debt Forum and Georgetown University’s Massive Data Institute, supported by the Gates Foundation. The Sovereign Debt Forum, a collaboration between Georgetown's Institute of International Economic Law and Queen Mary University of London's Centre for Commercial Law Studies, was established in 2019 to advance interdisciplinary legal research in sovereign debt, convene stakeholders, and support capacity building, particularly in low- and middle-income countries and those facing debt distress.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree required.
- Experience with contract analysis.
- Familiarity with the legal system of a non-US jurisdiction.
- Analytical, written and verbal communication, and organizational skills.
- Collaborative attitude.
- Ability to adapt to the challenges of an ambitious start-up.
- Understanding of the research process and knowledge of appropriate research protocols.
- Experience in planning and delivery of work allocation, to agreed timescales and quality standards.
- Experience in a research environment.
- Experience working with a collaborative team to achieve a common goal/objective.
- Experience in maintaining accurate and up to date records.
- Experience in collating, maintaining and deploying datasets to produce, interpret and present data reports and analysis.
- Effective verbal communication skills.
- Experience using Microsoft Office packages (Word and Excel).
- Advanced IT, numeracy and analytical skills with a high level of accuracy and attention to detail.
- Willingness to work flexibly to achieve the demands of the research program.
- Self-motivated and able to work without close supervision.
Nice To Haves
- JD, LLM and/or other graduate training.
- Law practice and/or management experience strongly preferred.
Responsibilities
- Assist in gathering full-text sovereign debt contracts.
- Tag key clauses in sovereign debt contracts.
- Gather information about the domestic borrowing framework of different jurisdictions.
Benefits
- Medical insurance
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- Disability insurance
- Life insurance
- Retirement savings
- Tuition assistance
- Work-life balance benefits
- Employee discounts
- Voluntary insurance options
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Entry Level
