Senior Legal Research and Drafting Specialist

Position Title: Senior Legal Research and Drafting Specialist

Reports To: Manager, Legal Research and Drafting Stream

Work Location: Gurugram, India

Stream: Legal Research and Drafting

About the Organisation

Loch Corporate Services Private Limited is a professional services firm delivering a broad range of solutions across administrative, technical, marketing, and specialised operational areas. Established with a focus on high quality and compliant service delivery, Loch supports organisations seeking integrated support functions under a single trusted provider. The firm is committed to strict confidentiality standards, consistent quality controls and seamless collaboration with client teams across multiple sectors.

Purpose of the Role

The Senior Legal Research and Drafting Specialist is a senior individual contributor within the firm's Legal Research and Drafting stream, reporting to the Manager, Legal Research and Drafting Stream. The role applies deep subject matter expertise to the firm's most complex migration and administrative law research and drafting assignments, producing submissions that are legally sound, factually rigorous, and technically precise. The Senior Specialist works closely with instructing lawyers and client practice teams on assigned matters, supports the Manager by providing quality review and mentoring input on junior work where requested, and contributes to the ongoing development of precedents, templates, and training material for the stream.

Responsibilities and Duties

Complex Legal Research and Analysis

• Independently conduct in-depth legal research across migration law, administrative law, refugee law, and relevant international instruments, producing structured research memoranda with reasoned recommendations.
• Interpret and apply statutory provisions, regulations, case law, and policy guidelines to the specific factual matrix of each matter, identifying strengths, weaknesses, and strategic considerations.
• Monitor developments in migration legislation, relevant tribunal and court jurisprudence, and departmental policy updates, and brief the firm and instructing lawyers on material changes.
• Conduct country condition research using recognised international sources, including UNHCR, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, US State Department reports, and other reputable country information reports, to support claims in protection and humanitarian matters.

Drafting of Persuasive Submissions

• Undertake the drafting of complex written submissions including protection and humanitarian visa submissions, ministerial or executive intervention requests, tribunal submissions, merits and judicial review applications, and responses to procedural fairness letters.
• Structure arguments by identifying and framing legal issues, weighing evidence, and aligning factual material with the relevant legal tests and evidentiary thresholds.
• Ensure all submissions follow the firm's drafting standards, including recognised legal citation conventions, Times New Roman 1.5 line spacing, paragraph numbering, and a complete bibliography where required.
• Refine language, structure, and tone to ensure submissions are coherent, persuasive, and appropriate to the decision-making forum.

Issue Spotting and Strategic Review

• Review client files and source materials to identify legal, factual, and procedural issues that affect the strength of a matter.
• Flag risks, inconsistencies, and gaps in evidence early, and propose strategies to address them through further evidence gathering or legal argument.
• Support instructing lawyers with considered views on prospects, merit, and evidentiary strategy before submissions are finalised.

Review and Quality Assurance

• Review drafts produced by Legal Research and Drafting Specialists and Paralegals when requested by the Manager, providing structured feedback on legal reasoning, factual accuracy, drafting quality, citations, and formatting.
• Track revisions across drafts, ensure version control, and confirm that feedback from instructing lawyers and reviewers is correctly incorporated.
• Perform final pre-lodgement checks on research memoranda and submissions, including cross-references, statutory references, citations, and annexures.
• Flag recurring issues in junior work to the Manager, Legal Research and Drafting Stream, and contribute to updates to templates, precedents, and training content.

Precedent and Knowledge Management

• Contribute to the firm's research repository, precedent bank, and knowledge management assets for the Legal Research and Drafting Stream, helping ensure they remain current, accurate, and reusable.
• Draft new precedents, checklists, and drafting aids in response to legislative change, new case law, or recurring client scenarios, for review and approval by the Manager.

Mentoring and Knowledge Sharing

• Mentor junior team members on professional standards, written advocacy, and analytical rigour, as directed by the Manager, Legal Research and Drafting Stream.
• Provide input to the Manager on capability gaps, training needs, and the development of junior team members.
• Contribute to the firm's internal training material and periodic sessions on research methodology, drafting technique, and updates in law and policy.

Compliance, Reporting, and Continuous Improvement

• Ensure all research and drafting outputs align with applicable legal and professional standards in migration practice, and Loch's internal quality frameworks.
• Maintain accurate records of assigned matters, turnaround, and review status, and provide timely inputs to the Manager's stream-level tracking.
• Provide periodic inputs to the Manager, Legal Research and Drafting Stream, on research and drafting volumes, turnaround, risk flags, and knowledge management updates.
• Flag opportunities to improve process, documentation, automation, and the overall quality and consistency of the stream.

Key Deliverables

• Timely, high-quality research memoranda and written submissions across the firm's portfolio of migration and administrative law matters.
• Reasoned legal opinions on complex issues delivered within agreed timelines.
• Contributions to the firm's precedent bank, research repository, and drafting standards library.
• Improvements in the drafting quality of junior team members through structured mentoring and feedback, where assigned by the Manager.
• Timely inputs to the Manager's stream-level reports and trackers at the agreed reporting frequency.
• Documented suggestions and proposals for improvements to templates, precedents, and processes.

Compliance and Confidentiality

The Senior Legal Research and Drafting Specialist must handle all client data, privileged communications, legal documents, and organisational information with the highest degree of confidentiality. The role requires strict adherence to internal data handling policies, applicable privacy and data protection regulations, legal professional privilege considerations, and all confidentiality obligations outlined in the employment agreement. Any breach of confidentiality may result in disciplinary action, including termination of employment.

Key Relationships

• Internal: Manager, Legal Research and Drafting Stream; Legal Research and Drafting Specialists; Paralegals; India Director.
• External: Instructing lawyers and client practice teams on matters referred to the firm.

Essential Skills

• Excellent written English with precision, clarity, and command of legal drafting conventions used in migration law practice.
• Deep familiarity with migration law, administrative law, and refugee law, including applicable migration legislation and regulations, and relevant tribunal and court jurisprudence.
• Strong ability to read, interpret, and apply statutory provisions, case law, and policy guidelines to specific factual scenarios.
• Proven capability to produce persuasive written submissions aligned to the evidentiary thresholds of relevant decision-making bodies including departments, tribunals, and courts.
• Advanced legal research skills using recognised legal research platforms, along with reputable country information sources for protection and humanitarian matters.
• Proficiency with recognised legal citation conventions and structured legal writing.
• Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Word, including styles, track changes, document comparison, cross-references, and tables of authorities.
• Sound judgement on argument selection, evidentiary strategy, and escalation points.
• Demonstrated ability to review, mark up, and constructively improve the work of junior team members.
• Strong organisational skills with the ability to manage multiple matters, deadlines, and stakeholders concurrently.
• Professionalism, discretion, and the ability to handle privileged and sensitive information with integrity.

Qualifications and Experience

• Bachelor's degree in law (LL.B.) from a recognised institution; a master's degree in law (LL.M.) or specialised qualification in migration law, administrative law, or public international law is strongly preferred.
• Minimum of five to eight years of post-qualification experience in legal research and drafting, ideally with exposure to migration or administrative law matters.
• Demonstrated track record of independently producing complex written submissions and research opinions.
• Working knowledge of migration law, administrative decision-making frameworks, and judicial review principles.
• Experience working with legal workflow tools, drafting trackers, and document management systems.
• Prior experience mentoring junior legal staff is strongly preferred.

Employee Benefits

• Four weeks paid annual leave.
• Health insurance coverage.
• Provident Fund contributions per Indian regulations.
• Performance-linked bonuses subject to eligibility and company policy.