Are you ready to put your legal skills to use to fight for a fair, sustainable and joyful next era of our societies?

Demos Helsinki is a globally operating, independent think tank. We work with curious governments, cities, companies, universities, and other partners sharing our mission. You can read more about us here.Working at Demos Helsinki is not just about thinking big, but always converting it into action. With us, you will learn to combine these two skills and get to work with more than 50 of our brilliant and devoted experts.

As a Legal Specialist, you will learn about Demos Helsinki’s way of changing the world and get to work on a variety of in-house legal tasks with an emphasis on international and domestic contractual matters. You’re responsible for making sure that the contractual processes are smooth and punctual and that our experts get support in legal questions related to our project work. The duties include especially:

• Drafting, reviewing and commenting on commercial service agreements, non-disclosure agreements and research funding contracts
• Responsibility for the contractual processes of Demos Helsinki supporting smooth cashflow management within the Finance team
• Implementing other legal tasks in cooperation with the Legal Counsel
• Assisting our experts in ad hoc matters depending on your previous expertise and interests

These duties take approximately 2–2,5 working days per week.

In addition to your responsibilities as a Legal Specialist, there is a possibility to extend the scope of your work into leading societal transformations as an Expert in our projects with external partners. This would mean a possibility for full-time employment at Demos Helsinki and is subject to the chosen candidate having sufficient capabilities and motivation in addition to legal professionalism. If you’re interested in this opportunity, please indicate in the application form what kind of societal change you’d desire to lead at Demos Helsinki.

Working with us, you have the support and expertise of our community around you, especially from our Finance team and Legal Counsel, Eedla, but you also need an independent and courageous approach to your own work. You need to be able to lead your own work, prioritize and identify relevant legal issues and communicate them clearly.

What traits are likely to indicate success?

• You are an independent and proactive thinker, doer and developer.
• Your interaction skills are great.
• You have graduated or are at the final stages of your studies either in law, administrative sciences or business administration & law (target degree e.g. OTM / LL.M. / HTM / oikeustradenomi).
• You have previous working experience in contract law.
• We also value previous in-house, employment law, IPR and data protection experience.
• You use both English and Finnish fluently as a working language. Other language skills are considered a plus.

What do we have to offer as Demos Helsinki?

• Ethos of fighting for a fair, sustainable, and joyful next era is visible every day. We approach societal change pluralistically, thus, discussions and argumentation to avoid simple truths are key for us.
• Working with brilliantly curious and talented people also beyond Demos Helsinki. Starting from our board and Untitled alliance network, we are working with people all over the world who won’t let you down.
• We take sticking to pre-agreed working hours seriously.
• Trust and kindness are the cornerstones of our community and communications.

Some practicalities regarding the employment relationship:

• Permanent employment
• Working time is 15-20 hours per week (or up to 37,5 hours if the chosen candidate has capabilities and motivation to do project work at Demos Helsinki)
• Salary 2900-3500 € per month for full-time employment
• Preferred starting date is April 2023

Demos Helsinki promotes equality in working life, and our office and all workspaces are physically accessible. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive community, a place where we can all be ourselves. This means e.g. flexible working arrangements and family-friendly employment policies. We treat others with dignity and respect, do not tolerate any form of discrimination or harassment and educate ourselves constantly.

We have an anonymous application process in the first phase of the candidate selection. You can apply for these positions by filling out the application form, but the details that are irrelevant for the preliminary selection (e.g. your name and city) are temporarily hidden when we go through the applications. The anonymous application process ensures that the preliminary selection is influenced only by information that is relevant to the process.

You can find the application form (including a pre-assignment) here.

Based on this application, we will invite people to interviews starting already during the application period. All applications sent during the application period will be taken into consideration in the recruitment process.

The application period is open until Monday 20.3.2023, 08:00 (EET). All applicants will be informed of their status in the application process at the latest during week 12.

For further information, you can contact CFO Ditty Damström (+358 50 567 3448) 3.–14.3. and Legal Counsel Eedla Rahikainen (+358 440605132) 15.–17.3. The best time to contact is from Mondays to Thursdays between 11:00 and 17:00 (EET).