The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) seeks to recruit a Legal Officer to manage institutional research and operational contracts, take charge of and manage the unit’s repositories and databases for efficient provision of legal services to ILRI’s research and operational teams and provide general support to the legal unit in compliance related matters.
ILRI works to improve food and nutritional security and reduce poverty in developing countries through research for efficient, safe and sustainable use of livestock. It is the only one of 15 CGIAR Research Centres dedicated entirely to animal agriculture research for the developing world. Co-hosted by Kenya and Ethiopia, it has regional or country offices and projects in East, South and Southeast Asia as well as Central, East, Southern and West Africa.
Key Responsibilities
Contracts management and research support
- Review and approve institutional contracts in line with ILRI and CGIAR policies and applicable legal requirements
- Oversee the sign-off and dispatch process for institutional contracts ensuring that complete and fully signed contracts are in place and properly filed as required
- Review due diligence checklists required by donors and / or partners for completeness and provide research teams with required information and documents to facilitate this process
Legal and corporate compliance
- Oversee and ensure timely and accurate completion, updates and renewals of all hosting services agreements
- Manage certification, notarization and authentication of documents
- Co-ordinate the process of adjudication and settlement of legal claims and cases with external and internal stakeholders
- Conduct research on emerging legal issues and advise management on any related legal risks and / or required measures to ensure full compliance
- Prepare training materials for ILRI staff and management on emerging legal issues and conduct training where required
- Maintain and update databases and repositories of contracts and key ILRI and Kapiti institutional / legal documents especially in relation to assets records, policies, procedures, legal disputes, lab notebooks and other institutional records ensuring the databases are updated as required and properly organized for ease of retrieval of documents
- Manage day to day requests for templates and documents ensuring that the unit’s SharePoint materials are updated as required. Attend to clarifications and other queries raised through the legal service desk
- Perform any other related duties as may be assigned from time to time to assist the Legal Unit achieve its mandate
Requirements
- Relevant professional certification
- An advocate of the High Court of Kenya
- Seven years’ relevant experience
- Post-admission experience in an in-house legal team in a large corporate, an international organization or a busy law firm handling contracts, litigation and human resources related matters.
- Demonstrate good grasp of relevant laws including but not limited to laws governing International non-profit organizations; Kenyan Law and the Constitution of Kenya 2010; Intellectual Property Law and related International Laws and Treaties, Labour Laws and Corporate governance.