Paralegal

The Obama Foundation’s mission is to inspire, empower, and connect people to change their world. We seek to build an active democratic culture where people are equipped and motivated to make change in the communities where they live, work, and play. On Chicago’s South Side, we’re creating a global center for change that offers coordinated programming, community outreach, educational moments, and more—inviting visitors from across the street or around the world to turn hope into action. Our team is guided by Hope to Action Values: Courage, Empathy, Integrity, Accountability, Community, Inclusivity, Pragmatism, Resilience, Imagination, and Hope—a framework anyone, anywhere can use to build trust, activate participation, and expand opportunity.

About the role

As a member of the Legal Team, the Paralegal will support fast-paced, mission-focused work related to legal research, document review, contracts, compliance, and operational support on a wide range of issues. Reporting directly to the Deputy General Counsel, Legal Operations, with additional managerial support from the Senior Paralegal, the Paralegal will assist with drafting and editing legal documents, special projects, and responding to legal inquiries and contract requests. The role also involves managing the department’s contract management system and organizing legal documents to ensure efficient storage and retrieval.

Responsibilities

• Review, analyze, and organize complex factual material and other substantive legal documents.
• Monitor the system for legal inquiries, respond to business team partners (reviewing materials, etc.), or escalate to attorneys in a timely fashion.
• Assist attorneys in the initial review and finalization of Foundation agreements by:
  • Reviewing contract requests from business team partners.
  • Coordinating with business team partners to resolve ambiguities.
  • Preparing initial drafts of contracts.
  • Coordinating with the reviewing attorney, business team partners, and third parties.
• Manage the contract management system, incorporating feedback from business users and stakeholders to improve the system.
• Work closely with attorneys on regulatory reporting obligations, compliance training materials, legal systems optimization, and the creation and maintenance of Legal team policies, standard operating procedures, and related training efforts.
• Support other Legal operations workstreams, which may include:
  • Maintaining Legal team project management trackers.
  • Managing outside counsel engagement letters and invoices.
  • Creating reports on Legal operations data.
• Draft and/or edit legal documents as directed by the manager.
• Perform legal research as directed by the manager.
• Prepare materials for trainings, internal presentations, and board and executive team meetings.
• Perform other duties as assigned.

Key Deliverables

• Concise explanations of legal research findings.
• Initial drafts of Foundation contracts and memos.
• Organized Legal Team file system containing the Foundation’s contracts and other core documents.
• Curated and well-managed contracting system that implements feedback from Foundation partners and meets the needs of the Legal Team.
• Timely responses to Legal inquiries from Foundation partners, with all inquiries responded to or escalated to the appropriate attorney within 24–48 hours.

Requirements

• 4 years of previous paralegal or other legal experience, either at a firm or in-house.
• Excellent writing ability, research skills, and analytical thinking, with confidence to apply research results to fact patterns to propose conclusions or prescriptions.
• Highly organized, with a track record of meeting short- and long-term responsibilities in a fast-paced, deadline-driven, high-volume organization.
• Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Prior experience building or maintaining a contract management system (e.g., Ironclad) is a plus but not required.
• Prior experience with Google Suite and Freshservice is a plus but not required.
• Committed to our mission of inspiring, empowering, and connecting people to change their world.

Pay

The salary range for this role is $83,600 to $104,500.

Schedule

This is a remote role based in Chicago.