Data Protection Lab Consultant

Ask Q is an oxymoron: it’s a start-up, with all the perks you’d expect from a start-up, but it has the experience and expertise of a grown-up. Every member of our team brings their own experience, expertise and vibe to the table and we are looking for another person to complement our team. We invest in our people and are happy to share our expertise with you. And so are the people of Quinz, our founding fathers and a top-tier Benelux law firm.

Ask Q wants to change the legal business. It is not the next law firm on the list but is the legal wing(wo)man that (international) companies have been looking for. At Ask Q, as a legal consultant, you will receive comprehensive learning and development opportunities that reach much further than the legal training within a law firm. On top of that, you will also learn the ropes of the in-house legal profession by working for different companies, often simultaneously. 

Ask Q serves as an extension of several top companies' legal teams with a Legal counsel on demand service and offers focused services in dedicated Labs. We want to change the legal business, also for our employees: we offer complete transparency about financials, strategy and planning, we let our consultants take ownership over clients and projects and we understand the importance of a good balance between work and life. We are passionate about what we do, but we know that there is more to life than work. 

In 2021, Ask Q launched the Data Protection Lab, which operates as the extension of legal teams for all matters related to both data protection and data valorization. Our Data Protection Lab aims to offer hands-on solutions for our customer’s day-to-day data protection encounters and not-so-everyday projects alike. Unlike more traditional law firms, we do not just offer data protection advice from a distance. We like to take ownership of the client’s problem and aim for easy-to-implement solutions that unburden the client by actually diving into the clients’ systems and connecting legal, IT and the business. We do the client’s homework.

We are looking for a pioneering legal professional who is triggered by this approach and who has a keen interest and experience in the fast-changing world of data protection and data valorization. 

Your Ask Q week will include: 

• integrating your data protection know-how in the client’s day-to-day operations (contract drafting, policy reviews, etc.);
• taking care of GDPR compliance in exciting projects (e.g. app development) or assisting new companies to achieve data protection compliance from scratch;
• helping clients to maximize data usage and valorization, while minimizing liability risks;
• proactively communicating with and advising the client’s international business teams on all kinds of data protection matters, either as their external DPO or as a dedicated legal counsel;
• providing data protection awareness training or crash courses that are tailored to the client’s business;
• discussing new data protection evolutions and proposing pragmatic solutions with your Ask Q colleagues in an open atmosphere;
• supplementing your legal skills with IT know-how by working together with non-legal profiles, such as IT specialists or ethical hackers;
• managing and coaching our junior legal consultants;
• getting continuous feedback as well as various learning and development opportunities, to grow fast as a legal professional. You will work with talented colleagues who will help you build a strong legal background enabling you to work for large international companies.

In our distributed ownership model, you can – on top of your high-level legal work – also take on an additional role to develop non-legal skills that you are interested in. These roles are very varied: for example, we have talent tigers who help with recruiting, a happiness officer who organizes office events and a knowledge manager who is our curator on everything related to knowledge products. If you feel there is a need for another role that you want to take on, we’re more than happy to listen to you. Next to that, we will encourage (and support) you to take charge of your continuous learning curve by creating a place where you get the room to fail, grow and share your learnings with the rest of the team. You will relentlessly train your colleagues, while you will also learn from them. 

• You hold a master’s degree in law from a renowned university. Any additional study or education is an asset; 
• You have at least three years of relevant work experience in data protection, as a lawyer in a law firm or consultancy firm, or as a legal counsel position in an (international) company; 
• You see data protection as part of the bigger company picture;
• You are a strong communicator with solid contract drafting and negotiation skills;
• You can coach and monitor the work of others to facilitate the achievement of objectives; 
• You are fluent in English. Fluency in Dutch or French is a nice to have; 
• You can work accurately with an eye for detail and deliver high-quality work;
• You have a hands-on mentality, are business-minded and have a high customer and service orientation; and 
• You show a proactive approach and have a knack for problem-solving. 

Working at Ask Q offers the best of two worlds: 

• you get to work on complex legal tasks while being supported by experts in their field, as you would at a law firm;
• you get to experience a variety of work for a variety of clients, as you would as an in-house lawyer. 

Working at a young, fast-growing company means that there is room:

• to let your entrepreneurial microbes run free; 
• to experiment and put the spotlight on your unique talents;
• to further develop your leadership skills but also your legal skills in the field of international commercial contracts;
• to learn from the expertise of your talented colleagues in other fields of law (like corporate, data protection, and many more) 
• to share your learnings with the team.

We grow together and support each other while doing so. Your colleagues will have your back while you enjoy a well-deserved break without your laptop. To help you balance your life, we offer a flexible work-from-home policy.

We will discuss a competitive compensation and benefits package during the job interviews.

We take diversity, inclusion, and social commitment seriously at Ask Q. Diversity is core to our values. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer, offering access to various professional development programs and continuing legal education opportunities.