WHO WE ARE

The Humane League (THL) is a global nonprofit ending the abuse of animals raised for food. THL fosters a high-energy culture of teamwork and mission-driven problem solving, and we have earned recognition as Top Charity from Animal Charity Evaluators for all of their rating periods. Over the past few years, we’ve grown to a staff of 90+ talented individuals dispersed across the US and around the world.

YOUR OPPORTUNITY

As the General Counsel, you play an integral role in ensuring The Humane League can continue to improve the lives of farm animals around the world. You will ensure that the organization operates within the law, offer counsel on legal issues, be an effective guardian of the organization, and facilitate business strategies ensuring legal compliance and limiting risk exposure.

We want you because you’re familiar with the accountabilities of a legal team in the non-profit and mission-focused space. You comprehend that there is more to lawyering than identifying risk, and thinking creatively to generate solutions that allow for various levels of risk mitigation or exposure. You are comfortable exercising and utilizing strategic judgment to help navigate tricky situations. You believe that win-win solutions exist and have to be prioritized, particularly when it comes to employee relations issues.

This is a full-time, remote position, reporting directly to the President. This position requires domestic travel, this is equivalent to approximately 2–5 trips per year.

CORE RESPONSIBILITIES:

Your responsibilities include but are not limited to:

• Nonprofit compliance, including corporate governance, finance and tax, restricted grants, charitable solicitation, commercial co-ventures, international grantmaking, and lobbying.
• Support and advise the Board of Directors, including drafting and revising corporate policies, bylaws, minutes, agendas, and resolutions.
• Serve on the organization’s Executive Team, shaping the direction of the organization and weighing in on critical programmatic, strategic, and operational judgments.
• Serve as a member of the Global Leadership Team, contributing to strategy alignment and operational efficiency across THL’s organizations internationally.
• Manage, develop, and mentor a small legal team. Provide vision and role clarity, guidance, coaching, training, and accountability. Manage the department’s budget and spending.
• Advise People Operations on federal, multistate, and international employment law, including review and revision of employee handbook and policies, and employee training.
• Advise management and staff on legal issues related to programmatic initiatives, including intellectual property, defamation, First Amendment, lobbying, and volunteers and interns.
• Engage in proactive strategies in advocacy, including coalitions, legislative advocacy, ballot initiatives, shareholder activism, and impact litigation.
• Draft, review, and negotiate a wide variety of contracts for all aspects of the organization.
• Manage intellectual property portfolio.
• Data privacy and security issues, training, and compliance.
• International expansion, including entity formation, operations, and international labor and employment.
• Support the development of training materials, guidance documents, and relevant staff and volunteer training.
• Oversee management of the organization’s insurance portfolio.
• Establish and manage relationships with pro bono attorneys and outside counsel.
• Other duties as assigned.

REQUIRED SKILLS:

• Extensive broad-based legal experience, including prior nonprofit General Counsel experience. Status as a member of good standing of the bar in any state or the District of Columbia.
• A desire to advise and support The Humane League’s contentious and motivated corporate campaign work. Willingness to assess and recommend an appropriate amount of risk in accordance with our program goals and the urgency of our mission.
• Willing and able to handle both Litigation and Administrative aspects of the legal function of the organization without legal support staff.
• Able to critically evaluate a wide range of issues and provide sound legal advice. Willingness and ability to develop familiarity with legal systems in and outside of the U.S. and the ability to adapt policies and procedures in compliance with local law.
• Exceptional written, presentation, and verbal communications skills that can applied across organizational levels. Able to quickly take complex concepts and communicate them briefly, simply, and persuasively. Excellent editor and proofreader.
• Demonstrated ability to foster high performance, build solid teams, and develop and motivate staff. Delegates skillfully. Inspires and motivates others to take action and meet goals, and holds the team accountable.
• Manages a high volume of work with efficiency. Has, or can create, a system for keeping requests from slipping through the cracks. Able to juggle contending demands and prioritize without sacrificing quality. Plans backwards to make deadlines. Asks for help when needed.
• Shares The Humane League dedication to increasing diversity, equity and inclusion in the animal protection movement. Is motivated to make changes in systems and practices to operationalize equity, identifying judgments, policies, or practices that have disparate impacts based on identity. Comfortable talking about identities such as race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, ability, or gender in plain, specific terms.
• Able to build and sustain reliance, credibility, influence, and sound relationships across lines of identity at all levels, internally and externally. Possesses the emotional intelligence to comprehend respective opportunities and motivations across the organization and our allies. Able to hear, reflect, act on, and learn from feedback regarding identity and equity.
• Brings a clear vision and recognizes the value of divergent perspectives. Approaches leadership with a mindset of “power with” rather than “power over” and regularly includes others in planning and decision-making. Able to make and communicate difficult judgments in the best interest of the organization.

Starting salary $99,850 or salary to commensurate with experience.

At The Humane League, animal welfare is at the forefront of our everyday work. As such, many of our staff are vegan by personal choice, and all of our THL-hosted events offer fully vegan menus. We welcome all mission-aligned candidates to apply, no matter where you are in your journey to end the abuse of animals raised for food.

The Humane League is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. Women, people of color, people with disabilities, and veterans are strongly encouraged to apply. In compliance with laws and in furtherance of our commitment to fostering an environment that welcomes and embraces diversity, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, or veteran status.

The Humane League is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities. If you need a reasonable accommodation because of a disability for any part of the employment process, please email People Operations (rh*@th*************.org) and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information.