Legal Counsel

Location: Remote

Summary

Wikimedia envisions a world where the sum total of human knowledge is available to everyone. The Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit home of Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and other free educational projects, serves as the hub of a global movement of hundreds of thousands of contributors collaborating to collect and share the sum of all human knowledge with the world. Protecting the privacy of Wikimedia readers, contributors, and donors is a key element of our work as an organization. Our Legal team counsels the Foundation as they create tools and features for Wikipedia, secure the websites, and collaborate with volunteer developers to design and build the future of the projects. We are looking for a junior to mid-career attorney with interest and experience in matters relating to product and privacy counseling to join our in-house legal department as Legal Counsel, reporting to the Associate General Counsel.

You are responsible for:

Advising product, engineering and design teams on legal issues related to feature development, launches, experiments and ongoing platform operations.
Supporting legal review of new products, product changes, and technical initiatives around the Wikimedia projects.
Supporting the draft, review and maintenance of user-facing terms, disclosures, policies, FAQs and internal guidance.
Counseling on product, privacy, data use, consumer protection, intellectual property, accessibility, online safety and related product issues.
Partnering with cross-functional teams to identify legal risk early and develop practical, mission-aligned solutions.
Monitoring and helping assess legal and regulatory developments that may affect Wikimedia’s projects globally.

Skills and Experience:

J.D. from accredited U.S. law school or equivalent foreign degree, and admission to practice law in that jurisdiction.
2-5 years experience with legal review of technical products or online services.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills and attention to detail, full fluency in written and spoken English.

Qualities that are important to us:

Dedicated, hardworking, passionate, and able to complete projects independently.
Ability to learn on the job, spot issues, think fast, and comfortably deal with complex and ambiguous issues with sound judgment.
Comfortable in a highly collaborative, multicultural, transparent environment.
Ability to assess and manage complex risks, and triage issues appropriately.
Mission-driven with a public service orientation and high personal integrity.
An understanding of, and commitment to, a free and open internet, to the open source and free culture movements, and to Wikimedia’s mission.

Additionally, we’d love it if you have:

Experience with open source, free culture, free software, or online communities.
A degree in computer science, engineering, or related experience, and have a good understanding of software engineering processes and issues.
Experience with public policy, government relations or other policy-facing functions.
Ability to speak other languages, experience living or working outside the United States, or past work on international legal issues are a major plus.

About the Wikimedia Foundation

The Wikimedia Foundation is the nonprofit organization that operates Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute something to our shared knowledge, and that everyone should be able to access that knowledge freely. We host Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects... [truncated for brevity]

Salary Info

Salaries at the Wikimedia Foundation are set competitively based on values & culture. Anticipated annual pay range for applicants based within the United States: $90,... [truncated for brevity]

Location & Remote Work Mention

Remote-first organization...

Employment Type

Not explicitly stated but implied full-time legal counsel position within an in-house legal department.

Experience Level

Junior to mid-career attorney (2–5 years experience required).