Legal Empowerment Manager

Requisition ID: req51493

Job Title: Legal Empowerment Manager

Sector: Protection and rule of law

Employment Category: Fixed Term

Employment Type: Full-Time

Open to Expatriates: No

Location: Baghdad, Iraq

Work Arrangement:

Job Description

Under the direction of the PRoL Coordinator, the Legal Empowerment Manager (LEM) will be responsible to oversee quality implementation of rule of law programming in the 4 Governorates of Iraq as well as identifying the needs and supporting capacity building activities for the staff and participating in governorate level Legal Working Group meetings throughout Iraq. The Legal Empowerment Manager will mainly oversee the legal activities including legal counselling, case management and awareness; referral systems; data collection and reporting. He/she will also lead on the identification, analysis and succinct reporting of legal trends and issues of concern to feed into protection sector strategy development, IRC programming, as well as relevant humanitarian coordination fora, such as the Protection and Legal Working Groups. The Legal Empowerment Manager will also contribute to the continued development of the legal sector, and will contribute to drafting funding proposals and budgets, under the guidance of the PRoL Coordinator and in close collaboration with Senior Protection Manager and other technical sector leads.
Reporting to the PRoL Coordinator, the Legal Empowerment Manager will be based in Erbil or Baghdad and provide technical roving assistance to other field offices. The Legal Empowerment Manager will technically oversee 3 or 4 Protection and Rule of Law Managers and Legal Team Leaders responsible for the day-to-day management of the program, and other staff depending on project development. The Legal Empowerment Manager will work extensively with the Protection Manager to ensure that protection principles are being incorporated into the emergency programs and ensure a high quality and ethical legal service delivery.

Major Responsibilities:
Grant Planning & Project Implementation
Oversee the overall implementation of the rule of law program in 3 or 4 governorates and provide information to the PRoL Managers and staff to ensure that stated goals and objectives are met, that the project is appropriately monitored and evaluated, and that project reports are written and submitted in a timely manner.
In coordination with the PRoL managers, prepare program work plans that meet the program objectives and prepare appropriate operational guidelines for project staff.
Provide significant inputs into donor reports in a timely manner, including up-to-date data for indicators. 
Ensure that project activities are implemented within the approved budget parameters, contribute to managing all financial aspects of the protection programs (budget follow-up, spending plans, cash forecasts, etc) and flag any irregularities with the PRoL Coordinator, approve relevant expenses and review expenditures, in consultation with the Finance Team and the PRoL Coordinator to ensure that project activities are implemented within the assigned budget parameters.
Participate in strategic meetings for proposal development, grants opening and grants review meetings and support the PRoL Coordinator in establishment/update of overall protection strategy.
Ensure IRC and donor reports as finalized per set schedules (monthly, quarterly, and annually) and indicators and achievements are followed-up and reported upon, according to the work plan.
Work closely and coordinates with IRC logistics, finance, and grant staff to ensure timely and compliant program activities and expenditures, including active participation in grant opening/closing and review meetings.

Technical Quality/Program Management

Oversee the smooth implementation of mobile legal assistance, following appropriate data security protocol, and provide quality oversight of the legal service delivery.


Reporting and Advocacy
Analyze legal data to produce succinct, analytical monthly legal reports to be shared with both external and internal stakeholders, highlighting key protection and legal trends and concerns.
In collaboration with the PRoL Coordinator, advise on protection and legal trends to inform country-wide and regional advocacy.
Support PRoL Coordinator in writing fact sheets, briefs and recommendations for Senior Management to circulate to UN agencies and other stakeholders.
Use data analysis to put together effective advocacy initiatives with national staff, with the aim of improving the protection environment in areas of operations.
Strengthen the capacity of the PRoL team on advocacy.
Use legal and protection information and survey findings to propose new areas of work for the IRC, and support proposal development.

Coordination & Representation
Develop and maintain effective coordination and long-term relationships with UNHCR and other external stakeholders, representing IRC positions, promoting long-term strategy and resolving problems/conflicts.
Actively contribute and participate in the Protection Platforms, ABCs, and JCF, and provide inputs to the PRoL Coordinator for meetings held at the national level.
Negotiate and maintain appropriate information sharing protocols within IRC programs and with external actors.

Other
Consistently and proactively monitor/assess the safety and security of the team; promptly reporting concerns or incidents to IRC management and liaising with community leaders and other external parties as required to maintain/enhance the security environment for IRC programs.
Other duties as assigned by the supervisor are to enable and develop IRC programs.
Provide technical guidance to field teams on all legal activities, including legal counselling, case management and awareness raising and monitor quality of work to ensure alliance with best practice service delivery.
Oversee accurate information and case management of the legal program, ensuring lawyers store their files securely, and maintain their casefiles in the case management system in an accurate and timely manner, carry out quality control and advise on corrective measures if applicable.
Provide technical guidance and capacity building to lawyers to ensure ethical programming through adherence to IRC ethical guidelines, the Legal Assistance SOPs, and Detention SOPs, observing client confidentiality guidelines and the lawyers’ compliance with IRC financial procedures.
Lead on advocacy strategies with justice actors to ensure continued acceptance of legal programming and observance of legal rights and standards.
Facilitate regular contact with security focal points and monitor events affecting representation of such clients.
Oversee budget management, ensuring spending is in line with spending plans and donor requirements.
Ensure legal assistance is subject to required M&E procedures.
Strengthen the capacities of national staff in the governorates of operation, specifically on legal assistance reports, and, with the support of the PRoL Coordination, ensure all monitoring and reporting tools are harmonized.
Provide technical guidance to staff and partners, on confidential and safe data collection in line with internationally recognized best practices IRC data protection protocol.
In coordination with the PRoL Coordinator, maintain effective and safe referral pathways for legal and protection concerns and other vulnerable cases between the PRoL programme, other internal IRC programmes and external partners, and ensure development and maintenance of SOPs for referrals.
Assist the PRoL Coordinator in the development of legal procedures and policies to improve legal programming and ensure compliance with ethical best practice.
Support the PRoL Coordinator in the development and delivery of appropriate trainings for IRC staff and partners on basic protection and legal issues, humanitarian principles, human rights concerns, protection mainstreaming, relevant legal framework and protection, and ensure that protection trainings for IRC Protection and other sector’s staff, as well as external actors are of high quality.

Support the PRoL Managers in the development and implementation of a context-appropriate, scalable community-based protection and legal approachs to foster self-protection capacities and engagement of conflict affected populations in camp and non-camp settings.

Staff Supervision & Development
Overall responsibility for legal staff management including development/revision of job descriptions, review of work plans and/or performance management plans, vacation schedules, timesheets, probation reviews, annual performance reviews and staff professional development activities.
Maintain open and professional relations with team members, promoting a strong team spirit and providing oversight and guidance to enable staff to successfully perform in their positions, including communicating clear expectations, setting performance objectives, providing regular and timely performance feedback.
Promote and monitor staff care and well-being, coordinate with respective Field Coordinators to manage all leave requests to ensure adequate coverage.
In close cooperation with the PRoL Coordinator and the Senior Protection Manager, participate in preparing basic protection training package for new IRC staff.

Key Working Relationships:
Position Reports to: PRoL Coordinator
Position technically supervised by: PRoL Coordinator
Position directly supervises:  N/A


Other Internal and/or external contacts:
Internal: Legal Team Leaders, PRoL Managers, Senior Governance & Rights Coordinator, MEAL, IMS PRoL team, ERD, WPE, GOV.
External:  Local partner and INGOs.

Qualifications

Education: University Degree in law.
Minimum 4 years of professional experience in practicing law or implementing legal programming and Management, experience in emergencies preferred
Strong background and knowledge of displaced communities/context and providing assistance to vulnerable communities in Iraq.
Strong knowledge of professional legal ethics and legal best practice service delivery
Experience with qualitative data collection, analysis, and reporting.
Proven experience in setting-up and following up on referral systems.
Previous experience leading diverse teams and with remote management
Strong program/technical and budget management skills, planning, reporting, monitoring, and evaluation skills
Demonstrated experience in training/capacity building of national staff.

Demonstrated Skills and Competencies:
Language Skills:  Arabic and English languages are required.

Total benefits:
Salary range: (3,380,192 - 4,394,250) Iraqi Dinars, based on various factors including the labor market, job type, internal equity and budget as well as calibrated by work location, individual candidate experience and skills relative to the defined job requirements.
13th month salary per year.
21 days of leave and 15 days of paid holidays per year.
IRC provides health insurance for staff and their dependents.
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