Lawyer

Job Purpose: The Legal consultant is responsible for providing legal information, counselling, assistance and representation to vulnerable persons, only for very specific cases, in accordance with INTERSOS’ mandate, priorities and donor agreement. The Legal Consultant directly reports to the INTERSOS Protection Officer   Project component: INTERSOS will create a legal desk in each of its five existing community centers. The legal assistance team works through a roving team which moves between the 5 centers and will have fixed appointment hours in each community center. The legal team will provide basic legal assistance: community sensitization sessions on key protection/legal issues and individual assistances providing information on legal status determination and documentation, in addition to rights and duties and through mediation support (non-juridical mechanisms). Only as last resort, If mediation was not effective, the case will be assisted to get legal aid from the Lebanese judicial system in order to access and take cases to civil courts.   Team composition: 1 legal consultant (lawyer) and 1 assistant legal officer (para-legal) are reporting to the international Protection Officer (PO) while data is processed at the Information Management Unit.   Main legal issues to be covered by the legal consultant: -      Housing, land and property (HLP) rights -      Legal identity including obtaining civil documentation necessary to access rights and services (birth registration, marriage registration) -      Citizenship and statelessness issues related to displacement Exceptionally, the legal consultant may engage in other thematic areas related to family law including dispute of custody, divorce procedures, which are issues strictly related to the case management as well.   Responsibilities/duties for the legal officer: Conduct basic interviews with refugees in order to assess legal and urgent protection needs of the IC. Provide individual and/or family legal counseling to beneficiaries, in order to orient them and make them aware about the legal procedures available and most suitable for each case. When necessary provide legal guidance to people who are in need of urgent and legal protection; services include legal advice, legal representation at court, mediation between the two parts and with the community leaders. Undertake follow-up visits to IC in very specific cases. Attend meetings and workshop/training as requested by the Protection Officer. Inform the Protection Officer of the individual progressive legal cases conditions on a weekly basis. Plan, develop and conduct legal awareness sessions for the refugees community and host community. Write report of the awareness sessions. Be involved in the office organization of awareness sessions or any other topic to be decided according to the need. Ensure steer and capacity building for the assistant legal officer ensuring the assistant can work independently for conducting interviews, providing basic counselling and support mediations. 10. work in coordination with other INTERSOS funded projects. 11. Respect deadline for the delivering of weekly and monthly reports and any kind of urgent reporting to the Protection Officer. 12. Any other task not listed here but necessary to the project and activities. 13. Available to work extra hours and available at the weekend for emergency cases.   Qualifications: ▪     Education and experience: -      University degree in law. Advanced university degree, preferably with the specialization in international human rights law and/or international refugees law; -      Relevant professional experience, registered at Lebanese bar association and not less than three (3) years (practicing civil law and family law); -      Prior experience in working with or coordinating with other international humanitarian organizations or governmental authorities; -      Familiarity with international protection and human rights legal standards; -      Knowledge on how to communicate with children and on advocating for special measures to be taken by judiciary authorities when survivors are children   ▪     Skills and traits: -      Excellent command of (written and spoken) Arabic and English; -      Computer/IT literacy (OS Windows/Linux, MS Office, Internet etc.); -      Excellent analysis and reporting; -      Excellent communication and organization; -      Excellent knowledge and understanding of local communities and customary rules; -      Punctuality and respect for applicable rules and procedures; -      Strongly objective and impartial reasoning; -      Ethical and transparent decision-making; -      Independence, i.e. conducting tasks with minimal supervision, and stress resilience; -      Self-motivation, goal/result-orientation and team work; -      Flexibility, tolerance and maturity.