Legal Officer, Nairobi, Kenya

Organizational Setting and Reporting

The Office of Staff Legal Assistance is headed by a Chief, who without prejudice to his responsibility to provide legal assistance to staff members in an independent and impartial manner is accountable to the Executive Director. Under the authority of the Executive Director, the Chief is responsible for the management and proper functioning of the programme of legal assistance to staff members in the internal justice system, including in administrative, disciplinary and appellate proceedings before the United Nations Dispute Tribunal and the United Nations Appeals Tribunal. These posts are located in the Office of Staff Legal Assistance (OSLA), Office of Administration of Justice (OAJ) one each in Nairobi, Kenya and New York, USA. The Legal Officer will report to the Chief of OSLA.

Responsibilities

Within delegated authority the Legal Officer may be responsible for the following duties:

• Serves as a lead officer in one or more areas of concentration, and independently handles a wide range of multi-discipline and complex legal matters involving issues of international, public, private and administrative law.
• Provides legal advice on diverse substantive and procedural questions of considerable complexity, including challenges against administrative decisions, disciplinary matters and general legal matters related to conditions of service by the Organization, its Funds and Programmes and specialized agencies.
• Performs extensive legal research and analysis and prepares legal opinions, studies, briefs, reports, and correspondence; provides legal advice to the Office and clients (staff members, former staff members and other individuals eligible for legal assistance).
• Prepares written legal and oral submissions/motions as necessary in the course of challenges to administrative decisions and disciplinary processes.
• Reviews, advises on and drafts complex agreements, institutional and operational modalities, or legal motions/submissions and other legal documents; develops new legal modalities to meet unique needs/circumstances.
• Advises on and participates in negotiations and settlement of claims and disputes.
• Provides legal advice on the interpretation and application of staff regulations and rules, including the review of administrative decisions;.
• Represents clients before the United Nations Dispute Tribunal and the United Nations Appeals Tribunal, as well as in management evaluation requests, disciplinary processes and other recourse mechanism.
• Represents the Office in meetings with staff and stakeholders and the General Assembly, as required.
• Coordinates and direct teams of other legal officers dealing with significant problems as required, and/or mentors and supervises the work of junior officers on specific projects.
• Contributes to review and design of new legal instruments, internal policies and systems.
• Collects and analyzes data to identify trends or patterns and provide insights through graphs, charts, tables and reports using data visualization methods to enable data-driven planning, decision-making, presentation and reporting.
• Acts as Officer in Charge of the Office when necessary.
• Performs other duties as assigned.

Education

An Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent degree) in international law or other related area is required. A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree.

Job - Specific Qualification

Not available.

Work Experience

A minimum of seven years of experience in law, including legal analysis, research and writing is required. Three years of litigation experience at the national or international level including first-hand experience in appearing and leading the evidence of witnesses before a court or tribunal is required. Experience within the United Nations system or other similar international organization is desirable.

Languages

English and French are the working languages of the United Nations Secretariat. For this job opening, English is required. Either Arabic or Chinese (Mandarin) or Russian or French or Spanish is desirable. The table below shows the minimum required level for each skill in these languages, according to the UN Language Framework (please consult https://languages.un.org for details).

Required Languages

Desirable Languages

Assessment

Evaluation of qualified candidates may include an assessment exercise which may be followed by a competency-based interview.