Manager, Legal

Manager, Legal

Who We Are

International Justice Mission (IJM) is the global leader in protecting vulnerable people from violence around the world. Our team of over 1,200 professionals are at work worldwide in over 30 offices. Together we are on a mission to rescue millions, protect half a billion, and make justice unstoppable.

We are a global community that cares for one another. We believe that the way we work is as important as the results we achieve. We provide professional excellence with joy and celebration to all those we serve.

The Need

For 25 years, IJM has pioneered the work to protect vulnerable people from violence. As we grow to expand our impact to protect 500 million people from violence by 2030, we are seeking a Manager, Legal to lead and build the country programs capacity to protect women and children from violence through effective and sustainable criminal justice system response to VAWC, by working closely with prosecutions and judicial duty bearers. Additionally, the Manager, Legal will also be responsible for influencing institutional prosecution and judicial leadership and key government officials to co-develop, adopt and implement initiatives that will improve and increase prosecutions in VAWC leading to accountability of perpetrators and protection of women and children from violence. The Manager, Legal will also be responsible for and provide leadership to the IJM team of lawyers as well as support initiatives to develop survivor and implementing partner capacities to engage criminal justice institutions in cases of VAWC.

This position is based in Kampala, Uganda and reports to the Senior Manager, Justice Systems Interventions.

Responsibilities:

• Build and lead a unified team of lawyers who are passionate and intuitively innovate on ways to secure protection of women and children through groundbreaking legal precedence in casework.
• Develop a legal casework strategy for a multidisciplinary, survivor centered and trauma-informed approach in response to VAWC cases and mentor the legal team to implement it through mentorship of duty bearers to effectively and efficiently prosecute cases.
• Develop and lead strategies and activities targeted at securing perpetrator accountability through charging, successful prosecution, convictions and landmark judicial pronouncements in cases of intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual violence against children (SVAC) in compliance with the laws of Uganda.
• Lead the legal team in routine learning and reflection sessions to identify legal gaps in effective investigation, prosecution and adjudication of cases of VAWC, to inform IJM technical support to partners and duty bearers on practice, process, policy and legislative interventions.
• Develop and implement replicable and sustainable models and legal best practices that can be decontextualized and scaled across the national program leading to enhanced performance of the criminal justice system response to VAWC.
• Define key milestones in the legal case flow process of IPV and SVAC cases and develop the correlating case processes and timelines for effective management of the cases through prosecution to judicial determination.
• In collaboration with the Advocacy and Communication teams, lead in the publicizing of successful prosecution and case outcomes to duty bearers, partners, and community stakeholders
• Develop collaborative engagements among all stakeholders in the justice system pipeline creating and sustaining strategic networks to address existing and emerging challenges related to IPV and SVAC response.
• Innovate ways to support the Uganda prosecution and judicial institutions increase their engagement and collaboration with other disciplines, service providers and survivor groups in the IPV and SVAC workspace to enhance a victim/survivor focused approach to IPV and SVAC accountability and response.
• Direct and supervise all efforts to train local authorities, legal practitioners, multi-agency actors on best practices related to the enforcement of the law and legal processes in IPV and SVAC.
• Ensure accurate and timely documentation of case related data in IJM data management system to enable effective case tracking while monitoring, evaluation and learning from the legal casework process to inform system strengthening initiatives.
• Lead the preparation of legal weekly, monthly and quarterly reports and contribute to the quarterly program review sessions.
• Participate in sharing program successes to internal and external audiences.
• Participate in IJM programs of professionalism and Christian spiritual formation.
• Ensure strict adherence to IJM operational, finance, programme and human resources policies.
• Ensure Legal team compliance to all IJM human resource, finance, security and operations policies.

Requirements:

• A Bachelor of laws degree and a post graduate diploma in legal practice. Master’s degree in a related legal field is an added advantage.
• A minimum of five (5) years’ work experience in criminal legal practice. Preferably at least three (3) years involved in leading teams to handle cases related to violence against women and children and with demonstrable successfully litigated cases in Uganda.
• Demonstrable experience, technical knowledge, and skill in handling cases of violence against women and children.
• Experience leading and managing teams in a multidisciplinary setting to deliver impact and results.
• Demonstrable experience in identifying training needs, developing training materials and delivering training with sustainable impact.
• Experience establishing, developing, training, and managing networks.
• Experience working with Uganda criminal justice agencies is desirable.
• Experience working in a multidisciplinary work environment.
• Experience in supervision and mentorship is an added advantage.
• Fluency in the English language both written and spoken is mandatory. Working knowledge of local languages added advantage.
• Possess a valid driving license.
• Excellent organizational and administrative, critical thinking, legal analysis, and oral and written communication skills.
• Excellent Computer literacy with proficiency in MS Word, Outlook, Power Point and Excel.

Critical Qualities:

• Mature Christian faith as defined by the Apostles’ Creed;
• Self-starter with strong initiative;
• Disciplined with priorities;
• Strong interpersonal skills and self-awareness;
• Exceptional verbal and written communication.
• Flexible, collaborative and eager to support others;
• Effective team player who fosters collaborative environment; and
• Adept at creative problem solving.