Legal Advisor / Paralegal

Purpose:
You’ll provide ongoing administrative and legal support to our long-term clients. We’ll look to you to manage the client relationship over the long run and manage each client legal matter from beginning to end.
Location:
Remote. Our firm is fully remote, we serve clients in the US, primarily Minnesota.
Days & Hours:
You will have some flexibility to set up your schedule provided there is significant overlap with our office hours (M-F 9:00AM to 5:00PM CST), excluding paid holidays. Core hours support is important to this role. Team members are not expected or encouraged to work weekends and clients are trained not to expect after-hours interactions. Regular and prompt attendance for the schedule determined is important for the position.
Position Requirements:
• Degree in laws, legal management or business (Philippine Bar passage not a requirement)
• Ability to work independently, manage workloads and adhere to deadlines.
• Detail and accuracy oriented.
• Proficient at MS Office suite (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.).
• Excellent interpersonal / communication skills.
• Fluent in English (verbal and written).
• Willingness to learn with a passion for self-development.
• Flexible, reliable, and resourceful.
• Analytical, problem solving, and critical thinking skills.
Technology Requirements:
• High-speed internet (~35+ mbps down / ~20+ mbps up).
• PC with: Windows 10 or higher; Ryzen 5/Intel i5 (or higher); 16GB ram or more.
• Follow our device policies; encrypt your PC hard drive, install free programs like Malwarebytes, Piriform’s CCleaner and use Windows’ VPN when using public Wi-Fi.
• 1080p or better webcam, headset and microphone for meetings and calls.
• Professional background (real or virtual) for video meeting purposes.
Preferred Qualifications:
• At least 1 year work experience in a law firm as a legal assistant or paralegal or in a business’ legal department handling general legal work.
• Experience with business law (formations, governance, contract review, drafting) or US tax law or tax-exempt entity issues.
• Experience with scrum / agile project management methods (LEAN, Sigma 6, EOS, etc.)
About the work:
You’ll manage your own caseload and work collaboratively with the team, sharing ideas and learning from colleagues to support your development. We’re fun loving and innovative – this firm is not like most other law firms, Google us to learn more. We serve small charities, nonprofits, and foundations through our innovative subscription services program and develop long term working relationships with clients. Our nonprofit clients view us as outsourced general counsel and need help with their operational business issues, people problems, as well as state and federal nonprofit compliance.
No two days are the same at the firm, and you can expect to learn something new every day. A successful candidate is a self-starter / do-er who is flexible, adaptable, and welcomes feedback.
This is a permanent full-time contractor position for up to 40 hrs/week. We’re looking for the right fit for our tech-forward team.
Day to Day Work:
Client Intake, Onboarding, Maintenance and Offboarding:
• Assist with sales hand off process, open file and update AirTable CRM records.
• Review intake / onboarding materials and collect additional docs, facts, background, or applicable law about clients who are onboarding.
• Cross-check and validate unverified information.
• Organize new files in Dropbox.
• Assist with compliance activities carried out each year for clients (charitable solicitation registrations, annual tax filings and corporate registrations)
• Close down files for projects and clients as needed.
Client Case Management:
• Welcome clients through onboarding calls/emails to review goals, next steps, and set shared expectations.
• Collect documentation from client and serve and front-line communication for all client needs.
• Ensure on-time completion of project, managing internal and external deadlines.
• Send routine correspondence about case updates or next steps, using our documented templates and your good judgment to customize for each client.
• Draft legal documents related to matters for attorney review.
• Legal research as necessary for the matter or for updating our nonprofit law database.
• Assist in the preparation, review, and finalization of legal documents (contracts, correspondences, official government applications/filings/submissions, etc.).
• Communicate with clients, colleagues, and others on behalf of Attorney.
• Ensure all client-facing work is free of typos or drafting errors.
• Manage cases with focus on efficiency and adhering to time budgets for each case.
Client Relationship Management & Time Billing Software:
• Keep organizational and client information up to date in AirTable CRM.
• Create records of personal interactions in AirTable CRM.
• Create time tickets recording your time and effort towards different work areas.
Systems and Process Improvement:
• Maintain client files in Dropbox following our documented file organization system.
• Refer to and adhere to standard operation procedures (while using good judgment to accommodate client’s circumstances).
• Create or update SOPs related to your work, when requested.
Types of Cases/Matters:
We help clients with all aspects of starting a new nonprofit, which includes:
• Corporate formation and obtaining a federal tax ID number
• Creating bylaws compliant with state law, IRS requirements and sector best practices
• Applying for IRS income tax exemption
• Registration for charitable solicitation in their home state(s)
• Applying for state sales tax exemption
We also help teach clients how to run and manage ongoing nonprofits, assisting with legal matters like:
• Contract review, negotiation or creating custom agreements for re-use
• Review or creation of policies and procedures
• Managing current employment issues
• Managing board governance issues
• Resolving IRS issues like revocation of income tax exemption or reclassification
• Dissolution or merger of nonprofit organizations
Systems Used:
• MS Office, AirTable, Wildix VOIP phones, Dropbox, Slack, Zoom, PatternBuilder (fka AfterPattern), WordPress, ChatGPT, Tettra, Acuity Scheduling, Active Campaign, Jotform
Our Core Values:
We hire and conduct performance assessments based on our core values. You will be happy here if these core values align with yours…
Be Human First.
Our clients are nonprofit organizations – but nonprofits are made of people. So are law firms. People are at the center of everything we do in life and work. We recognize the human issues in front of us, not just technical issues. We care about each other. So, no matter the situation, we lead with our heart, not just our head. We ask people how they are and really want to know the answer.
Always Be Tinkering.
Every person at the firm, no matter their role, has an insatiable curiosity and an inner drive to continuously improve things. This drive isn’t about perfection, or never being satisfied. We’re just always wondering “what if we…” and “could it be better if…” Tinkering means trying things to see if they work – adjusting and re-adjusting. It’s being creative, generating ideas, asking small questions, and staying open to possibility. We know we can accomplish big things through 1% improvements.
Take Radical Ownership.
We demonstrate leadership by owning our roles, owning our plans and, especially, owning our mistakes. Even when there are other external factors that helped cause the failure, we ask “what could I have done differently here.” We also process our feelings…and still fully accept things as they are, instead of ignoring, avoiding, or wishing the situation were different. After a plan goes wrong, or we fail to live up to our role standards, we look through the objective lens of reality to identify what went wrong, how we could do it better next time and how we can help our team avoid failure in the future. When you make a mistake, be humble and admit it. When the team faces a challenge, step up and help each other develop a plan to overcome it. By doing this and accepting reality we put our team’s success ahead of personal success.
Claim Your Response-Ability.
We claim our agency. There are so many things we can’t control in life – the weather, how fast the IRS moves, or how people treat us. What we can control is our response. We can respond in ways that demonstrate our values, that show respect for self and others, and that put good out into the world. Our response is always our choice, sometimes it’s all we have to work with – so we choose it consciously.
Play an Infinite Game.
Many people play a finite game where the game ends and there are winners and losers. But we know it’s more fun to keep playing an infinite game. We play an infinite game where we can change the rules, add new players, and the goal is to keep playing and improving. This means we have an attitude of abundance – we gladly refer out clients that aren’t a good fit and make friends with our competitors because there’s always more work available. It means we trust the universe – we trust great clients and colleagues will find us and we trust each other. It means we enjoy the ride – we believe in the mission and have fun delivering it. Examples: Chess is a finite game. Relationships are an infinite game. A contract review is a finite game. Keeping a nonprofit healthy is an infinite game.
Make It Easy.
Running a nonprofit is challenging. Running a law firm is challenging. Let’s make it easy, whenever we can, however we can. Let’s say yes and create a positive experience whenever we can. We deploy our autonomy, common sense, empathy, and all the tools available to us to make things easier – for our clients – of course – but also, others and ourselves. We provide outstanding customer service to our clients and to each other.
Benefits:
• Focus on team member wellbeing.
• Work-from-home with flexible schedule.
• Paid holidays and 10 days paid time off.
• Friendly remote office culture.
• Opportunities for advancement.
• Paid training and development opportunities.
Your contract will be a monthly amount and we expect that you will need to take time away for rest, recreation, illness, family, vacations, or customary holidays. Your compensation will not be reduced due to these absences. The goal is to get the outcomes achieved, we believe with hard work we can all have time away from our desks and still do that.
The following US holidays are paid days off and the firm is closed: Memorial Day, US Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Black Friday. If our team is on track to meet work goals, we also try to close the office between Christmas and New Year’s Day every year. There may be holidays important to you in your home country, we will work with you to plan for you to be away on those dates.
Continuing Education. All team members receive regular opportunities for internal and external professional training / continuing education and are encouraged to set growth goals for themselves, look for education opportunities, or suggest team opportunities throughout the year.
How to Apply:
Email us a resume, your unofficial transcript, and a cover letter to the contact form at birkenlaw dot com. In your cover letter, share a memorable experience from a previous role that showcases your approach to people or client interactions. How did you handle a challenging situation or create a standout moment for someone? Be sure to put your favorite emoji in the subject line of the email 🙂 Please note that applications submitted through the website will not be considered.