Managing Lawyer - Climate and Nature Litigation

The Lifescape Project; Remote; GBP 53,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

A UK-based charity is seeking a Legal Projects Manager to oversee its litigation projects aimed at protecting wild landscapes. The successful candidate will work with the Director of Legal to devise strategies and manage a legal team. Responsibilities include legal research, case management, and drafting legal documents. This full-time remote position offers a salary of £53,000 to £55,000, flexible working arrangements, and extensive benefits including annual leave, a retreat, and training budgets.

Benefits

36 days of annual leave

Employee Assistance Programme

Training budgets

Pension plan

Annual retreat

Qualifications

• Proven experience in managing legal projects and teams.
• Ability to draft legal documents and engage with government consultations.
• Strong analytical skills to identify legal barriers and opportunities.

Responsibilities

• Lead litigation projects and collaborate on strategy.
• Manage and mentor the Legal Project Officer.
• Conduct detailed legal research for case development.
• Draft legal correspondence and consult on policy proposals.
• Identify funding opportunities for litigation efforts.

Skills

Legal research

Case management

Strategic planning

Team collaboration

Communication strategy

Education

Relevant legal qualifications

Tools

Microsoft Teams

Job description

About Us and our Litigation Projects

We are a small but growing UK-registered charity which undertakes projects that protect and restore wild landscapes, helping to provide a future for all life on earth. We use the skills and expertise of our multi-disciplinary team (spanning science, law, economics, technology and culture) to develop projects that protect and restore wild, natural landscapes.

Find out more about our mission and our team on our website: https://lifescapeproject.org/who-we-are/

We have two ongoing litigation programmes:

• Through the Forest Litigation Collaborative (FLC) we use litigation and quasi-legal actions to protect forest ecosystems, including combating the rise of forest biomass energy and its wrongful treatment as a ‘zero-carbon’ energy source. This involves collaborating with local NGOs and lawyers across the globe, whilst engaging in legal thinking spanning policy, public law, corporate law, consumer law and other areas, in order to develop and execute the most effective strategy possible - https://forestlitigation.org/
• Our Litigation for Nature (LFN) project uses litigation to protect wild ecosystems or components thereof, while simultaneously promoting the restoration of these wild ecosystems where they no longer exist or are in a poor state. Continuing to fight against systemic threats to keystone species is an important focus and the successful candidate will lead on developing our overall Litigation for Nature strategy - https://lifescape.netlify.app/projects/litigation-for-nature/

Job Purpose and Key Responsibilities

Working with our Director of Legal, Elsie Blackshaw, you will have day to day responsibility for our litigation projects and be central in our ambitions to expand their scope and scale. Your role will include:

• working closely with Elsie and our partners to devise our overall litigation strategy and identify new opportunities to bring legal challenges;
• line management of our Legal Project Officer (litigation) and sharing line management responsibilities for our trainee secondee;
• collaborating with our Managing Lawyer (Rewilding Law) to understand legal barriers to rewilding which may benefit from legal interventions;
• general case management of our legal actions including instructing, managing and working closely with external counsel and managing other NGOs involved in legal actions;
• detailed legal research to build case theories in the UK and EU;
• substantive legal drafting of pre‑action correspondence and pleadings etc;
• critically analysing relevant legislative and policy proposals and drafting associated responses to government consultations as well as technical reports giving guidance to NGOs on their correct application, etc;
• working with other NGOs to keep up to date with developments which may impact our work and identify opportunities to use litigation to tackle our core issues;
• supporting Elsie to identify and pursue funding opportunities; and
• taking an active role in developing and implementing communication strategies to publicise our litigation projects.

Please download the job description for further information.

Location

This is a remote‑working position and will involve some UK and international travel. The full team meets in person at least three times a year. These are multi‑day meetings, usually held in UK and European areas relevant to rewilding. The nature of the work means that we are in very regular contact on Teams etc, ensuring a strong connection amongst the team.

Applicants who are resident in the UK or the EU in time zones +/- 3 hours GMT with appropriate qualifications and experience will be considered. Salary and benefits will be adjusted according to country of residence based on cost of living and cost of employment.

Salary and Benefits

• Full‑time, permanent position with a salary of £53,000 - £55,000 per annum, depending on experience
• Performance based annual salary increases available
• Flexible working can be agreed with the successful candidate, as can temporary international remote work outside country of residence
• Benefits including 36 days of annual leave (28 not including public holidays), expenses paid annual Lifescape retreat and two in person staff meetings per year, full pension, remote work and training budgets, and provision of computing equipment. We also subscribe to a 24/7 unlimited Employee Assistance Programme, so there is always someone for you to talk to if you need support.

To apply

Please email a cover letter and CV (each a maximum of 2 pages) to [e-mail] by 9am on Thursday 22 January 2026.

If you would like to talk to someone about the role before you apply, please contact Sarah in the first instance.

Interview and Closing

While the official closing date for applications is 22 January, we will be reviewing applications as they come in. Interviews are expected to take place virtually on Microsoft Teams w/c 2 February.

The role will commence as soon as possible.