Legal Specialist Trustee

• Role: provide legal oversight, analysis and strategic guidance to the CEO and board  
• Liaises with: Chair, CEO, trustees, committees, external stakeholders
• Location: Cambridgeshire area/remote
• Voluntary role: reasonable expenses paid
• Time commitment: 0-5 hours per month (estimated), mostly outside office hours
• Term: negotiable, e.g. interim/three years/extendable by re-election
• Application closing date: 31st October 2024

About Us:

Evolve Counselling is a long-established charitable social enterprise, providing low cost, affordable or funded mental health counselling to adults in Cambridgeshire and surrounding counties. Our professional counselling community is made up of 50 – 60 qualified self-employed practitioners, working part-time to deliver talking therapies both online and in person. 

We deliver around 500 counselling sessions per month to a broad range of individuals, many of whom would not otherwise be able to access therapeutic support. Evolve also provides supervision, reflective practice, critical incident support, and mental health awareness and related training to organisations and businesses large and small.

We are in the early stages of developing ambitious growth and innovation programmes, so this is a perhaps the most interesting time to be part of Evolve since we started in the 1970s. Opportunities for new Trustees to make their mark are considerable.

What We’re Looking For:

We are searching for an experienced legal specialist who can support our board, committees, and the CEO as we move through our next strategic stage of consolidation, then growth. Although long-established and successful, Evolve is reshaping itself and your legal expertise will be instrumental in positioning our charity to successfully meet the ever-growing demands and opportunities for supporting good mental health in our communities. Please note, a background in counselling is NOT a prerequisite for this role. Training will be available in general charity governance and in specific areas such as charity finance.

Your skills and knowledge, whether gained in the charity or commercial worlds, in a Legal Department or Practice, or a specialist consultancy, will help us to plan and “do the right thing” for our small staff and our self-employed counsellors, as we grow.

Including quarterly board meetings, committee sessions (at present virtual), a face-to-face AGM event, away days, and regular meetings with our CEO and the trustees, we anticipate a flexible time commitment of around 0-5 hours per month.