Legal Counsel
XPF 537,766 - 658,322Posted 6 days ago
Closes in 27 daysOverseas role, based in Noumea, New Caledonia
About the company
The Pacific Community (SPC) is the principal scientific and technical organisation in the Pacific region, supporting development since 1947. It is an international development organisation owned and governed by 27 country and territory members, working across more than 25 sectors. SPC is known for its knowledge and innovation in areas such as fisheries science, public health surveillance, geoscience, and conservation of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture.
About the role
The Legal Counsel sits within SPC's Legal and Governance Team, which oversees governance, legal and risk management support and advice across the organisation. The role maintains the integrity of SPC's governance framework and internal legal functions, advising on employee relations, contracts, funding arrangements and matters of international law. It involves handling issues relating to international law, international administrative law, and the relationship between international and domestic law as these affect SPC's operations. The Legal Counsel contributes to developing and improving SPC's policies, guidelines and templates, and provides outreach, education and training on governance and legal obligations to staff and members. The role also manages and supervises a Legal Officer, ensuring delivery against their key result areas, and works collaboratively across SPC locations to support organisational change and a 'One SPC' culture.
Key responsibilities
- Provides specialised legal advice, both written and oral, to all SPC divisions on SPC's internal governance and legal framework.
- Prepares and reviews memoranda, instruments, contracts, templates and other legal documents.
- Handles issues relating to international law, international administrative law and the relationship between international and domestic law as it impacts SPC's operations.
- Performs extensive legal research and analysis and prepares legal opinions, briefs, reports and correspondence.
- Provides advice on any dispute or litigation across the organisation.
- Contributes to mitigating SPC's legal risk through continued development and improvement of policies, guidelines, templates and processes.
- Provides outreach, education and training to raise awareness of SPC's governance framework and legal obligations among staff and members.
- Manages and supervises a Legal Officer, ensuring they deliver on their key result areas.
About the successful candidate
- Postgraduate degree of Laws (LLB) or equivalent body of knowledge and experience.
- Meets the professional requirements to practice law in one or more jurisdictions of an SPC member country or territory, or a similar legal system.
- Demonstrable experience and understanding of legal issues facing inter-governmental agencies.
- At least 5-6 years post-qualification experience providing legal advice on legal, governance, and organisational issues.
- Experience in a development organisation.
- Strong analytical and conceptual skills, with excellent legal analytical skills.
- Demonstrated experience and knowledge of the legal systems of SPC member countries and territories.
- Excellent verbal and written communication and negotiation skills in English, with the ability to work well in a multi-cultural and gender-sensitive environment.