Senior Planning Manager & Staff Attorney

LOCATION: WESTERN US OR WASHINGTON, DC

ABOUT THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY

The Wilderness Society (TWS) is the leading conservation organization working to protect America’s wild places and public lands for the health of local communities, wildlife, and climate. Founded in 1935, and now with more than one million members and supporters, The Wilderness Society has led the effort to permanently protect 111 million acres of wilderness and to ensure the sound management of America’s public lands. TWS is scaling up its work to address the existential threat of climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and deep inequities with access to the benefits of nature. TWS is working to achieve four major collective impact results: protecting 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030, transitioning off of fossil fuel development on public lands to well-sited renewable energy, securing equitable access to public lands and their benefits, and building a critical mass of support for conservation of public lands.

GENERAL DESCRIPTION

The Senior Planning Manager & Staff Attorney will bring deep legal, policy, and planning expertise to priority geographies where achievement of The Wilderness Society’s strategic outcomes will require long-term engagement in federal land management planning to accomplish enduring and equitable conservation gains. The Senior Planning Manager & Staff Attorney will coordinate across national policy priorities and with place-based conservation staff to track, provide strategic advice and tools, and directly assist TWS staff and partners in engagement in priority land management planning processes. Throughout this work, the Senior Planning Manager & Staff Attorney will prioritize community-led conservation and Tribal partnerships, as well as utilize the law and agency policy to advance and defend protective policy interpretations and outcomes and establish a strong record for potential administrative challenges or litigation.

This position plays an important role in supporting an inclusive organizational culture that is grounded in trust and accountability to shared goals and outcomes. TWS has made diversity, equity, and inclusion strategic priorities for the organization, and the Senior Planning Manager & Staff Attorney will integrate these priorities throughout their work. Across our team, we aspire to be campaign oriented, nimble, collaborative, innovative, transparent, and supportive of staff – our greatest asset.

ESSENTIAL DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

• Coordinate across national policy priorities and with place-based conservation staff to identify and support engagement in priority federal land management planning processes. This will include identifying key opportunities to achieve desired results, providing legal, policy, and planning expertise, assisting with developing and maintaining relationships with relevant agency staff and decision-makers, supporting robust partner engagement, and ensuring development of a strong administrative record.
• Establish and maintain tracking and accountability mechanisms for TWS engagement in land management planning.
• Produce and maintain comment templates and training materials, reflecting current agency policy and practice.
• Coordinate closely with TWS science team, identifying research needs and ensuring application of existing data, science, and mapping to priority planning processes.
• Embed equity and elevate and support community-led conservation and Tribal partnerships throughout land management planning processes.
• Work with place-based conservation staff to identify grant opportunities, training resources, and other means to support community engagement in land management planning.
• Work with national policy and campaign staff to promote and leverage agency planning opportunities to support implementation of national policy goals.
• Perform other related duties as needed.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Juris doctor with a minimum of 7 years’ experience in legal, planning, and/or policy work.
• Experience engaging in local, state, tribal, and/or federal agency decision-making, including through the effective application of environmental laws and policies, preparation of technical comments, and utilization of experts, and in challenging agency decisions through administrative remedies and litigation. Experience engaging in federal land management planning and corresponding National Environmental Policy Act process preferred.
• Ability to review and comment on agency proposals and environmental review documents, translate and advance national policies in place-based opportunities, and identify and execute important record-building opportunities.
• Ability to train, advise, and support place-based conservation staff and partners on utilizing national policies for effective engagement in years-long planning and decision-making processes.
• Highly organized and able to synthesize and track significant amounts of complex information. Experience managing collaborative projects with multiple deliverables a plus.
• Ability to work successfully within complex multi-disciplinary campaign settings and across diverse ecosystems, geographies, and communities, including communicating legal and policy issues across disciplines and helping tailor planning approaches and recommendations to unique or local community needs.
• Excellent analytical, verbal and written communication skills.
• Track record working successfully in teams representing a rich mix of talent, backgrounds, and perspectives—across race and gender.
• Commitment to embedding equity throughout land management planning and other place-based opportunities to advance national policy objectives.
• Willingness to travel for short durations.

This job description is intended to convey information essential to understanding the scope of this position and it is not intended to be an exhaustive list of experience, skills, efforts, duties, responsibilities or working conditions associated with the position.

The Wilderness Society offers a competitive salary and benefits package, including: health, dental, vision, life and disability insurance, generous paid time off policy, paid parental leave, a sabbatical program; and a retirement plan. TWS is an equal opportunity employer and actively works to ensure fair treatment of our employees and constituents across culture, socioeconomic status, race, marital or family situation, gender, age, ethnicity, religious beliefs, physical ability, veteran status or sexual orientation.

As an organization, we aspire to being inclusive in the work that we do, and in the kind of organization we are. Internally this means working as a team that listens to different points of view, recognizes the contributions of every employee and empowers each employee to bring their whole selves to work every day. Externally this means ensuring that public lands are inclusive and welcoming, so that our shared wildlands can help people and nature to thrive. We are committed to equity throughout our work, which we define as our commitment to realizing the promise of our public lands and ensuring that all can share in their universal benefits.

To learn more about our commitment, please see http://wilderness.org/our-commitment-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-wilderness-society