Legal Fellow

Summary

Join the Wikimedia Foundation's legal fellowship program for an immersive 18-week experience. Fellows will work on challenging legal projects related to internet law and free knowledge, receiving individualized assignments and supervision from a Legal Department attorney. The program offers opportunities to contribute to research, drafting agreements, and policy development. Fellows will collaborate on projects, attend meetings, and gain practical legal experience in a web-based company setting. The Wikimedia Foundation may facilitate academic credit or funding through the fellow's university. This fellowship is ideal for current law students or recent graduates passionate about free knowledge and open source issues.

Requirements

• High energy for and commitment to the Wikimedia Foundation's free knowledge mission, including an interest in free culture issues, digital rights, open source software, Creative Commons licensing, etc
• A good sense of humor and the ability to excel in a fast-paced, multitasking environment that demands fast turn-arounds
• Intellectual curiosity and flexibility that makes them enjoy tackling difficult and ambiguous problems in creative ways
• Experience working with large online user communities (or at least the desire to)
• The ability to flourish in a highly transparent and collaborative environment and work on a team with diverse demographic and cultural characteristics
• Excellent writing skills that can be adapted to communicate complex legal concepts to a large audience with varying (or no) backgrounds in law
• Completed coursework in some or all of the following areas of law: internet law, freedom of expression (domestic and international), intellectual property, contract drafting, international law, privacy, data security, and/or licensing

Responsibilities

• Research various legal questions
• Draft licensing agreements
• Develop internal and external policies
• Spearhead individualized projects under the supervision and guidance of an attorney from the Legal Department
• Attend and participate in internal and external meetings
• Collaborate on projects
• Receive feedback and support
• Learn about the practical dimensions of practicing law in-house at a web-based company

Preferred Qualifications

• Candidates with strong research backgrounds are preferred
• Candidates with experience with wikis or Wikimedia projects are preferred
• Multilingual candidates are a plus!
• Candidates with experience and/or coursework in drafting agreements and/or policies are preferred
• Students who have experience in these areas are heavily preferred
• Being a Wikimedian!

Benefits

• The anticipated annual pay range of this position for applicants based within the United States is US$36/hour to US$44/hour with multiple individualized factors, including cost of living in the location, being the determinants of the offered pay
• For applicants located outside of the US, the pay range will be adjusted to the country of hire