Legal Department Assistant

Research Foundation of the City University of New York; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 55,000 - 65,000; Full time

Job summary

RFCUNY’s Institute for State & Local Governance (ISLG) seeks a Legal Department Assistant to provide administrative and operational support for the Legal Department. The role supports partnerships with funders, government agencies, nonprofits, and universities, ensuring alignment with goals while managing risk.

This position is Hybrid and based in New York City, with two days in the Midtown office and three days remote.

Qualifications

• Legal Department Assistant provides administrative and operational support for ISLG's Legal Department.
• Supports contracting processes and documentation with precision and confidentiality.
• Interfaces with RFCUNY, ISLG staff, and external partners to ensure timely deliverables.

Responsibilities

• Tracking and managing contract workflows, including updates to contract tracking software and status reports.
• Liaising with Administration, ISLG staff, and external partners on contracting items and submissions.
• Reviewing contract materials, formatting (redlining), and compiling signature pages.
• Coordinating meetings, scheduling, and note-taking as needed, including virtual and in-person events.
• Maintaining and organizing documentation such as contracts, templates, data-use agreements, and ISLG policies.

Skills

Contract management

Meeting coordination

Documentation handling

Administrative support

Attention to detail

Tools

Microsoft Word

Contract tracking software

Data organization tools

Job description

Thank you for considering a career with the Research Foundation of The City University of New York (RFCUNY). The team at RFCUNY is made up of dedicated, talented professionals committed to providing the services that allow CUNY researchers, faculty, and staff to focus on their intellectual curiosity and scientific discoveries. We are pleased that you are interested in exploring opportunities to join RFCUNY.

Primary Location:

CUNY INSTITUTE FOR STATE & LOCAL GOVERNANCE

Bargaining Unit:

No

The Institute for State & Local Governance at the City University of New York (CUNY) is a public sector consultancy at CUNY. We partner with governments and community organizations to build effective policies and practices, balance budgets, and develop leadership skills and institutional capacity. By improving these systems and services, we help make communities stronger. Our team holds expansive technical expertise in research and analysis, leadership education, and program design and implementation. We also have deep and broad subject‑matter knowledge, including in municipal and state finance, criminal legal systems, education, public health, and social work. Through this, we provide our partners with the responsive and flexible support to reach sustainable and practical solutions for the communities they serve.

Our Goals for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

We strive to foster an office environment and an approach to work that welcomes and respects different perspectives, backgrounds, and life experiences. We are working towards our goal of recruiting and retaining staff who are diverse in terms of race, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, veteran status, socioeconomic status, disability, and legal system involvement.

Position Details

ISLG's Legal Department is expanding its administrative capacity by hiring a Legal Department Assistant. This position will provide administrative and operational support for ISLG's Legal Department. The Legal Department supports ISLG's mission by providing legal support across all aspects of ISLG's work. The legal team helps structure and negotiate key partnerships with funders, government agencies, non‑profits, community‑based organizations, universities, and other partners, ensuring alignment with institutional and partner goals while managing risk.

The Legal Department works with departments across ISLG, including the Administrative, Policy, Research, and Operations Departments. The Department also works with the CUNY Office of General Counsel and the Research Foundation of CUNY (RFCUNY).

ISLG's Legal Department consists of the Executive Legal Counsel and Deputy Legal Counsel. The Legal Department Assistant will report to the Deputy Legal Counsel and will be responsible for providing a broad range of administrative support for the Department.

This is an excellent opportunity for a civic‑minded professional interested in a public policy environment. This role offers the opportunity to gain exposure to non‑profit organizations and government agencies, public‑sector partnerships, research and policy work, and legal operations.

• Tracking and managing contract workflows, including obtaining status updates from RFCUNY, updating contract tracking software, providing updates to the Legal Department, RFCUNY, and internal ISLG staff.
• Liaising with the Administration team, ISLG staff, and external partners as needed, on all contracting‑related items, including assisting in submission of contracting materials to the Administration team and RFCUNY.
• Supporting contracting processes, including reviewing contract materials, Word processing activities (formatting, redlining, etc.), compiling signature pages, proofreading.
• Coordinating, scheduling, and supporting meetings, including internal meetings with project teams and meetings with external partners. Support includes setting up virtual meetings, setting up and breaking down in‑person meetings, and may also include tasks such as soliciting meeting agenda items and note taking as needed.
• Maintaining and organizing documentation such as draft and executed contracts; templates, project‑specific documents, data use agreements, data security protocols, ISLG policies, and other resources as directed by the Department.
• Distributing executed contracts to project teams, external partners, RFCUNY and CUNY, as needed.
• Providing administrative support as needed for projects, such as collecting and preparing required documents and appendices, compiling and organizing application materials, pulling together boilerplate language.
• Providing other administrative support as needed.
• Other duties as assigned.

This position is hybrid and based in New York City. CUNY ISLG staff work out of the Midtown office two days a week of their choosing and the remaining three days a week remotely.

This is a tempor