Staff Litigation Attorney

Software Freedom Conservancy seeks a full-time employee to help us with important impact litigation to forward software freedom. SFC is a nonprofit charity centered around ethical technology. Our mission is to ensure the right to repair, improve and reinstall software. This employee will be critical to the software freedom movement by assisting us in the legal actions necessary to advance the software right to repair and copyleft licenses such as the General Public License (GPL).

This is a full time salaried position with benefits (including health insurance and paid time off). SFC has employees all over North America and we all work remotely. Budget is provided to support each employee's home-office.

Successful candidates must be admitted (or about to be admitted) to practice law in at least one jurisdiction in the United States. Compensation is commensurate with experience; we expect the salary range for this position to be consistent with charities in smaller US cities, US$80,000 to US$90,000.

Ideal candidates will have a background in computer science as well as the law, but any lawyer with a general familarity with technology and basic software concepts, and who is excited about software freedom is encouraged to apply.

SFC uses Free and Open Source Software (“FOSS”) whenever possible for our operations; candidates should be enthusiastic in their desire to do legal work using FOSS, even if you have no experience with it. (A laptop running Debian will be provided, along with server infrastructure, with user support provided for the entire staff by a full-time sysadmin.)

Ideal candidates will already have some litigation experience and/or experience with FOSS law. However, SFC is open to you learning on the job.

A successful candidate will be principled, extremely detail-oriented, a great communicator and able to manage time well across different projects. In addition, we also expect strong candidates to:

• have excellent legal research and writing skills
• understand complex provisions of applicable licenses, laws and regulations
• have the skill to analyze intricate problems and develop creative solutions
• work well independently with appropriate supervision, and
• grow into a leadership role in case planning or other coordination

Submit applications via email to jobs@sfconservancy.org. Please include a resume or CV, cover letter, and a legal writing sample (in which you are the sole or primary author; please indicate if there were other authors). . Please also provide three references (we will not contact them prior to notifying you). All materials must be in a file format that can be easily viewed with free software, such as a PDF viewable by Evince, text, or LibreOffice format.

All applications must include a statement that the candidate did not use any generative AI tools to create any portion of your application. Applications without such a statement will not be considered.

We are open to candidates of a variety of backgrounds and experience levels. Applications will be accepted and evaluated on a rolling basis until the right candidate is found. We will announce on this page when applications close.

This is a full time salaried position with benefits (including health insurance and paid time off). SFC has employees all over North America and we all work remotely. Budget is provided to support each employee's home-office.