Senior Counsel

The Senior Counsel will report directly to ICANN’s General Counsel and Secretary, and will be responsible for oversight of the Legal Department’s Contracting Services Group. Senior Counsel will be responsible for drafting, review and negotiation of all contracts made in the name of ICANN, general transactional legal advice and developing strategic processes for a wide range of transactions for ICANN. The work will require complex problem solving and responsibilities requiring a significant degree of knowledge, decision-making skills and independent judgment.

Key Responsibilities: 

--  Structure and negotiate complex legal and business transactions.
-- Draft or review contracts and contract language and establish procedures to reduce risk.
-- Advise management and executive leaders on legal aspects of business transactions, including technology contracts, procurement contracts and intellectual property matters.
-- Identify potential legal issues related to business practices and policies and provide advice to all levels of management and staff as requested.
-- Draft correspondence related to transactional matters.
-- Work on complex legal projects and provide appropriate advice that is informed by risk assessment.
-- Work with litigation counsel (both in-house and outside counsel) as appropriate to the extent transactional matters are involved in litigation.
-- Ability to manage shifting priorities and navigate unresolved areas of law.

ICANN is an unusual global organization. It is based on a multi-stakeholder concept that brings interested voices around the world into the bottom-up policy-making process for the Internet’s domain name system. You can find more about us at http://www.icann.org.

Why Join Us?

There is no typical ICANN employee. Our staff has a wide range of backgrounds and working styles, with many working remotely, and we have offices in Europe, Asia and the United States. Most ICANN employees own their own projects, work closely with executive management and enjoy a rich benefits plan. Our employees are the key to our company’s success.  We demonstrate our commitment to our employees by offering a competitive and valuable rewards program.  ICANN's benefits are designed to support the wide range of goals, needs and lifestyles of our employees, and many of the people that matter the most in their lives.

Come work with the people who are shaping the future of the Internet!

Required Skills 

•    Sound business/legal judgment with ability to balance business objectives and risk, and solve legal problems in a high-output, fast moving environment.
•    Exceptional written/drafting and oral communication skills.
•    High-quality work product with fast turnaround times.
•    Ability to work in cross-functional teams and experience with project management environments is beneficial.  

Required Experience 

•    Knowledge of ICANN’s Multistakeholder Model and the domain name system and the top-level domain name industry is preferred.  
•    Experience with privacy and data protection laws a strong plus.  
•    Experience or understanding of public-benefit, non-profit or multistakeholder environments is a plus.
•    Active license to practice law and being a member in good standing with the appropriate bar or other legal authority is required.
•    Experience in multi-national transactions and transactional-related commercial disputes are preferred.  
•    Seven to ten years experience involved in transactional-related legal work, whether in a law firm or in-house capacity, including contract drafting and negotiations and providing substantive review, analysis and advice on such proposed transactions.  

ICANN is an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, veteran status, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation, age or other protected characteristics and complies with all applicable laws and regulations.

Salary commensurate with experience and qualifications. ICANN offers a competitive benefits package, including a retirement savings plan and also employer-paid medical, dental, vision, disability and life insurance.

All resumes should accompany a well written cover letter (first impressions are everything). Tell us why you are the best person for the job. Only those with comparable skills will be contacted. No phone calls or email please.

About us: ICANN’s mission is to ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer – a name or a number. That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world. Without that coordination we wouldn’t have one global Internet. ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable. It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet’s unique identifiers. ICANN doesn’t control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn’t deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet’s naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet.

For more information please visit: http://www.icann.org.